


Eucatastrophe

by arealsword



Category: Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Genre: Adventure, Altered Mental States, Body Horror, Diegetic Musical, Existential Panic, Fae & Fairies, Fairy Tale Curses, Folk Music References/Allusions, Gen, High Fantasy, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Light Implied/Referenced Noncon, Magical Nonsense, Mind Control, Panic Attacks, Poisoning, Rescue Missions, Suicidal Thoughts, Swearing, TS Storytime Big Bang 2020, The power of music, canonverse, cosmic horror, kind of a wild mash-up of many different mythological elements, quite a lot of flowers, schemes, stories, strangely-timed family bonding, unreality
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-26
Updated: 2020-08-26
Packaged: 2021-03-07 02:28:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 99,089
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26099407
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arealsword/pseuds/arealsword
Summary: Here are some facts: All forests are connected. Some stories demand sacrifices. Nature has the strangest tendency towards uncanny symmetry. And none of the Sides are really prepared for a musical, magical, high-fantasy rescue mission, but it looks like that's what they're going to have to do anyway.That is to say - Thomas seems to have been kidnapped by fairies.Someone should really do something about that.
Relationships: Anxiety | Virgil Sanders & Thomas Sanders, Creativity | Roman "Princey" Sanders & Thomas Sanders, Dark Creativity | Remus "The Duke" Sanders & Thomas Sanders, Deceit | Janus Sanders & Thomas Sanders, Logic | Logan Sanders & Thomas Sanders, Morality | Patton Sanders & Thomas Sanders, The Sides & The Sides (Sanders Sides), Thomas Sanders & The Sides
Comments: 433
Kudos: 144
Collections: Storytime! 2020





	1. thomas (i)

**Author's Note:**

> Hi! Welcome to the story that I’ve been talking vaguely about for months now - it's finally here!
> 
> Thank you to: Len, for being the best beta in this universe or any other and dealing with both my particular brand of narrative nonsense and my unfortunate overuse of emdashes and the word ‘says’. Everyone in the Storytime discord, for being so nice to me over all my very minor writing woes and obligatory mid-story breakdown. Rhymezone dot com, my only friend. And everyone on Tumblr/in the comments section of Pick A Side who expressed interest or excitement when I mentioned that I was writing an extremely long fantasy canonverse fic and refused to elaborate on that past ominous hints and vague excerpts. Y'all rock. 
> 
> Special mention to JRR ‘Jirt’ Tolkien, whose lovely coined term is of course the title of this story. 
> 
> All songs and poems are my own work, and weren't written with any particular tunes or other songs in mind. Feel free to sing them to any melody that may be fitting, pre-existing or not. Or just chant them ominously. Or don’t do either of those things, I guess. 
> 
> **Warnings** that I didn’t mention in the tags because it was too complicated to fit up there, but are worth noting: there’s a scene in Chapter 2 which contains binge eating-adjacent sort of content (it’s complicated). Remus is in all of this fic, which means his usual kind of NSFW-ish fare is sprinkled throughout (although it’s probably not as bad as it could be). And the suicide/suicidal thoughts here do _not_ refer to those of a canon character.
> 
> Enjoy!!! I love you.

The day is clear and clean and bright, and Thomas is out in the forest just a few miles away from his house. It’s always a bit of a trip to get there in the first place, of course, but that’s a small price to pay for the simple, organic beauty of it all.

Thomas loves his job and loves his friends and loves the town that he lives in, but sometimes it’s nice to just get away from all that – to hike out to the local forest and spend some time wandering through the seemingly endlessly tall trees and the patches of gloriously warm golden sunlight filtering in through their branches, alone.

Well. Mostly alone.

It had been just Roman who’d shown up at first, during the car trip over (not an unusual occurrence when he’s out and about and his mind’s wandering) and Thomas had been more than happy for the company. Having someone to bounce ideas and thoughts and dumb jokes off of is always more pleasant than being _entirely_ alone, after all. And since puns and jokes were in the mix, it didn’t take very long at all for Patton to show up as well; his tied-over-the-shoulders hoodie flapping in the wind as he jogged along besides Roman and Thomas, sometimes running ahead slightly so he could turn around and chat face-to-face with them as he walked rapidly backwards.

Upon reaching the forest itself – an old, endless sort of place with so many pine trees it seemed more like something directly out of Gravity Falls than anywhere that should rightfully exist in the middle of Florida – Virgil had skulked out from behind a couple of shady trees, muttering something about the dangers of wandering alone through unknown forests. To which Thomas had reminded him that it wasn’t unknown; he had been there several times previously, and besides he wasn’t really alone, he had three very good friends backing him up right now, didn’t he?

And at this point Logan had shown up too, looking very out of place amidst the trees with his immaculate shirt and neat tie, and had pointed out that actually there were _four_ people backing Thomas up, even if all of them weren’t strictly corporeal in any significantly helpful sense. Logan had also provided several gentle yet reasonable reassurances for Virgil’s case of Forest Apprehension, and when Thomas had offered a hand out to him, he had taken it with only the slightest bit of hesitation.

Patton had happily grabbed onto Virgil’s other hand, and tugged at Logan’s sleeve until he did the same, and Roman had linked fingers with a grinning Thomas, on his other side, and this is how they all got to how they are now – wandering through the trees together; chatting idly, and occasionally singing snippets of music at each other.

All of them holding hands hadn’t lasted very long at all, because the dirt path they’re following is slightly too thin to accommodate five people walking side-by-side. So they’re now walking in a loose group – Virgil still sticking close to Thomas and not letting go of his hand. Thomas doesn’t mind. The slight buzz of anxious adrenaline that comes from Virgil making contact with him is only really shocking in the first moment it happens. Now it’s just kind of comforting; like a slightly-too-cold blast from his car air-conditioner on an extremely hot day, like his morning cup of coffee has just succeeded in kicking in.

Hanging out with his Sides like this... it’s _nice._ Really nice, actually. There’s no real urgency to anything that they’re talking about, and when they do fall into brief periods of debating and argument, it’s much lighter and far less dire than usual. Thomas feels warm, as he looks around at all of them – Logan, eagerly explaining the basics of forest soil acidity and alkalinity to a nodding, comically serious-looking Patton, who clearly has no idea what he’s talking about. Roman, wondering in Thomas’s direction how hard it would be to coax a real bird over to sit on his finger so he can have a suitably charming Disney Prince Moment with it. Virgil, with one earphone bud in – the music blasting from it loud enough that Thomas can make out the strains of some musical theatre soundtrack he can’t quite remember the name of. It’s not what he’d consider Virgil’s usual fare, but he seems to be content enough so he doesn’t bring it up, not even to gently tease him.

About half an hour into this, they’re deep enough into the forest that any and all sounds of civilization are nonexistent. They haven’t passed any other people on the walking track, which isn’t unusual, as such – it’s a pretty quiet forest in general. It’s also probably a good thing, because the idea of having to explain to a complete stranger why he’s talking with himself (or, well, multiple versions of himself) or even make awkward eye contact with them – isn’t a fun thought in the least.

Roman’s humming and occasionally vocalizing snatches of music over his shoulder in Thomas’s direction – to which Thomas is either nodding and humming back at him, or frowning and suggesting something else, because Roman’s apparently working on a song of some sort for a video concept that Thomas has been considering for a while – when Thomas spots Janus, keeping pace with him several metres to the left of their group.

Nobody else has seemed to notice yet, not even eternally vigilant Virgil, who’s currently engaged in a remarkably thoughtful conversation with Patton about punk culture. When Thomas makes brief eye contact and raises a questioning eyebrow, Janus looks slightly uncomfortable for a moment or two before shrugging silently, and indicating the others; all coexisting without argument. He presses a finger to his lips, then readjusts his hat as he looks up into the treetops, smiling at nothing in particular.

He looks content to just enjoy the morning as much as everyone else without engaging or interacting or disturbing the equilibrium they’ve found, so Thomas decides to just let sleeping snakes lie, so to speak, and not say anything about it – choosing instead to look back to Roman and keep on throwing snippets of melody and snatches of lyrics back and forth with him. As it turns out, Logan has appropriate words and rhyme schemes to share, which only becomes apparent upon Patton encouraging him into doing so. Within less than ten minutes of this, Thomas has his phone out (which he had promised himself he wouldn’t do during this walk) and is tapping brief, typo-riddled dot points into his notes app and grinning to himself as ideas spring into existence around him.

Eventually, his mind drifts away from songs and composition, and all of a sudden everyone seems to be debating the merits of nectarines over peaches – something that Thomas wasn’t even aware he had an opinion on, but there’s a pretty obvious divide here. Virgil keeps insisting that the mouthfeel of nectarines is immensely superior to peaches in every way, while Patton and Roman are both of the opinion that peaches are just tastier and sweeter in general, which is what’s the most important.

“Come on, guys,” Thomas says, breaking into their conversation. He’s abruptly remembered a detour he had taken on a previous forest exploration trip. “I remember a great place, just up here – ”

He leads their small party off the well-worn dirt path and towards the sound of running water, and before long, they’re all standing in front of a gushing, crystal-clear stream that’s about thigh-deep, if Thomas is remembering correctly.

Patton’s almost immediately stripping off his shoes and pawprint-covered socks and rolling up his pant legs, because he’s the sort of person that jumps into large bodies of water just because he can, but he also doesn’t like having wet socks. Roman’s wading into the depths without bothering to take anything off, because he’s the sort of person who’s all too aware that he can magically/psychically/imaginarily/whatever-ly snap all the water away in an instant.

“This is... good,” says Virgil. He sits on a rock just overhanging the river, and looks around as Logan comes to sit next to him as well, smiling faintly. “It’s weird, but this is actually okay. I mean, apart from the fact that the river could have a million weird water viruses in it, and also they could fall in and drown or get ticks or catch hypothermia – ”

“Come to think of it, you may be absolutely right,” says Logan, raising an eyebrow. “If any of us besides Thomas were actually real, there _might_ be a distinct chance of any of that happening.”

“No need to be sarcastic about it,” Virgil replies, and sighs. “Sorry. It’s kind of my job, so.”

“Not a problem,” Logan says, and awkwardly bumps shoulders with him, like he’s unsure of what he’s even doing.

Thomas sits down, just at the edge of the river, and grins up at them both. “Don’t worry, Virge – or, don’t worry about _this,_ at least. I’m not planning on going in today.”

They watch Patton and Roman splashing around in the river for a while. It’s a comfortable sunny silence, broken only by soft, even footsteps from behind them.

“Oh, great,” mutters Virgil acidly, seeing that Janus has finally elected to join them. “Look who’s here.”

Janus raises an eyebrow, and looks around, exaggeratedly curious – left to right to left to right again. “Hm? Someone else, here?”

Thomas is having a really good day, and he doesn’t want it to be ruined as something as stupid as an argument with himself. Multiple himselves.

“All right, guys, play nice,” he begs, breaking up the ensuing argument before it can really start to get going. “Please? Just for today, get along?”

Virgil sighs and growls and glares but eventually relents. Logan actually rolls his eyes a bit – and what’s up with that? – but didn’t seem to have actually had a problem in the first place. Patton and Roman haven’t even noticed yet.

“Absolutely not,” sniffs Janus.

“ _Thank you_.” Thomas, relieved, shuffles over to let Janus sit next to him on the riverbank.

It takes a couple more minutes for something else to happen and when it does, Thomas, as per goddamn usual, doesn’t see or hear Remus coming. All that he knows is that one moment he’s leaning up against the side of the rock that Virgil and Logan are perched on, about to ask something about birds or flowers that he hopes Logan remembers the answer to better than he ever could – and the next, there’s someone colliding heavily on him from behind, the weight throwing him forward so that he very nearly ends up toppling into the stream. He hears wholehearted laughter and the smell of something very slightly rotten, and twists around to see that the other half of his creativity is clinging to his back like a demented green glittery koala.

“Hey, Remus,” Thomas sighs. “How’s it going?”

“Hi!” Remus chirps, apparently entirely delighted to be there. “Did you know that bull sharks can adapt to fresh water? There could be a shark coming down this stream to chomp all of our dangly bits off, even as we speak!”

Over Virgil’s shriek of, “They _what?!_ ” and Logan’s mildly delighted, “As a matter of fact, I _did,_ ” Thomas starts trying to gently disentangle Remus from him, because his back is protesting a bit from the unexpected weight, as imaginary as it is. Roman, from the water, lets out a shout of annoyed alarm, and starts splashing his way to shore, pulling his katana out from his side as he does so.

“Hey there, bro-bro!” Remus exclaims, and allows Thomas to dump him gently on the ground. “Ready for a wild, bloody fight to the death? I’ve been dreaming about this for _weeks!_ ”

“That is actually immensely disturbing, now that you mention it,” Roman says, halting in the shallows. “And it makes me more than a little reluctant to actually fight you like I was planning to. But if you don’t depart now into the vile shadows from whence you came, I may be forced to do just that! Leave, or taste the steel of my blade, brother!”

“Sure thing!” Remus exclaims. “Although I’d really prefer to taste some other things, if you catch my drift!”

“Oh my god, you’re disgusting,” Virgil mutters under his breath.

Remus grins a cheesy grin – literally, there’s literal cheese in it. It’s pretty much as terrible as it sounds. “I aim to please, Paramorose!”

Patton’s also made his way to shore. He looks like he’s on the verge of tears as his eyes dart back and forth from Remus, attention-catching and bombastic; to Janus, who’s been lurking on the edge of events – silently observing, but not really engaging at all. Patton being on the verge of tears is never a good sign, so Thomas figures it’s about time for him to step in.

“Do we need to fight?” he says. “This is a really nice day, guys. Can’t we just... you know, put all of my personal issues to the side for a few hours?”

“Yes!” agrees Patton enthusiastically, looking relieved. “Obviously, I mean, there’s – you can stick around if you _want_ , but let’s all try to keep Thomas calm and happy, all right? There’s no reason to get at each other’s throats.”

“Metaphorical or... otherwise,” Logan adds, with a glance at the drawn weapons.

“How very agreeable,” hums Janus.

“Well, maybe we could fight a _bit_ ,” Remus says, sounding entirely too innocent. “And I could maybe fit in some maiming, while I’m at it.”

“No fighting, with weapons or otherwise, and _definitely_ no maiming,” Thomas begs.

“Oh, come on – what’s a little brotherly carnage between – well, brothers?” Remus says enthusiastically, bringing his morning star up from his side.

Thomas glances over and sees that Logan’s flicking through a handful of flashcards. He pulls one out, scans it, and nods. “The Cain instinct,” he says solemnly. “Of course.”

“I really don’t think – ” Patton says, looking much more nervous than Logan does, but Remus is already charging Roman, who brings his sword up to defend. But before the morning star can so much as contact Roman’s body in the least, there’s a blur of black-and-purple, and Virgil is there – heaving Roman bodily out of the way.

Remus doesn’t even make the slightest attempt to alter his weapon’s course, and Virgil goes flying backwards with the impact of the morning star, arms pinwheeling wildly, and goes under with a tremendous splash of water that absolutely soaks everybody standing on the bank. There’s a moment as the water stills where everybody seems to be completely frozen.

“Oh dear,” says Janus, who’s leaning lightly on Thomas’s shoulder to watch the whole thing – sounding endlessly amused by the whole affair.

Patton lets out a tiny dismayed squeak, and stumbles to the edge of the water. “Virgil? _Virgil?_ ”

“Oh my god,” breathes Thomas, flat-out horrified. “You _killed him._ ”

“Nah,” says Remus, and holds up his morning star for inspection. It becomes obvious as he shakes it about with one hand that it’s not a proper weapon by anyone’s standards – in fact, it appears to actually be made out of rubber, or something else suitably floppy.

Janus laughs, a tiny little chuckle of amusement; and unwinds himself from Thomas’s side even as Virgil breaches the water, coughing and spluttering and cursing. Patton immediately wades in to help him up, although Virgil waves off the attention, stumbling to his feet. He’s glaring ferociously enough to burn a hole clean through steel at fifteen paces, so it’s surprising that Remus is actually still standing – and grinning, no less.

“Great,” he growls. “Now I’m _wet_.”

Remus just beams.

Roman ends up going in as well to help Virgil out of the water – and out of his soaked-through hoodie, although his protests against this are vehement and probably completely understandable considering that it’s just as imaginary as the rest of him. Nonetheless, he does end up quieting down into a kind of sullen, reluctantly happy silence, when Roman kisses him cleanly and squarely on the forehead and declares him ‘his hero’ for intercepting the ‘death blow’.

“Technically, he was never in anything close to danger –” Logan begins, but Thomas and Patton, from either side of him, shush him wholeheartedly, because it’s rare to see the two of them getting along. Not as rare as it had been in the past, but it’s still a bit of an unexpected delight.

Remus, having had his moment of chaos already, seems content enough to follow them as the group as a whole uses a fallen log to hop the river, and continue off into a sunnier part of the woods. Patton’s carrying his shoes and socks in one hand, and tip-toeing through the scattered twigs and leaves, yelping softly whenever he steps on them. Virgil is still soaked through and muttering to himself angrily about how his headphones aren’t working anymore, but he brightens as they emerge from the trees and shrubbery into a positively fantastical clearing.

It’s so legitimately stunning that Thomas has to stop for a moment just to catch his breath. And, sure, Remus charges past him to go tear up a patch of delicate-looking flowers and rip them into shreds, but even that can’t really ruin it.

It’s like something out of a fairy tale. The clearing’s almost perfectly circular, although it doesn’t appear to be man-made in any way, and the regular walking path isn’t visible in any direction. The sunlight streams in from above, forming large patches of luxurious-looking warmth on the perfectly green grass. There’s flowers and mushrooms and plants and moss everywhere, growing in patches and clusters, and on the sides of trees and rocks, and there’s a few birds calling to each other, far up above it all. Not loud enough or insistent enough to be actually annoying, just a pleasant sort of background noise.

“I... don’t think I’ve ever been here before,” Thomas says, although he’s almost certain he hasn’t. He’d remember a place like this.

“This is _ideal_ ,” Roman asserts, looking as delighted as Thomas feels.

Virgil seems to agree, because he’s already heading directly for one of the patches of sunlight, throwing himself down into the grass. He rolls over so the sun’s hitting his face, and stretches contentedly in it, cat-like.

Janus coos mockingly, clicking his tongue at Virgil even as he plucks a bright yellow flower that Thomas tentatively identifies as a buttercup, and tucks it behind his more reptilian ear. Virgil opens his eyes, and gives Janus a very dark look indeed, but instead of saying anything more vitriolic, just says, “I know for a fact that you love lying in the sun as much as I do.”

“I have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about.” Janus looks around, and pulls a purple flower – which, yeah, Thomas has no idea what _that_ one is – from where it’s sprouting off the side of a tree. He regards it with a curious expression on his face.

Virgil sighs. “Cut the crap and get over here.”

“Absolutely not,” says Janus, already heading over. He drops the tiny purple blossom unceremoniously on Virgil’s chest, and settles down on the grass rather elegantly several feet to the left of him in another patch of sunlight. He tips his face upwards, and his scales catch in this brilliant light. He looks... happy. Content.

Thomas grins at them both – coexisting without argument – and goes to explore the edges of the clearing. There’s so many flowers. Just, _so many._ Every species and type of flower that he can name or picture in his head is there in some form, and there’s quite a lot that he can’t name there as well.

He notices something, and knocks his way past a few sunflowers, their round dark faces tilting and bobbing up at the sky. He almost squishes a few perfectly-formed red-and-white mushrooms with one misplaced step before he manages to right himself and take a good look at what he was heading towards. There’s clusters of dark, juicy berries hanging from leafy green branches, hanging at the perfect height for picking.

He holds one up to examine it, and he’s pretty sure that they’re blackberries, but he can’t really be sure – and he doesn’t need Virgil’s sudden intake of breath and warning stare from across the clearing to remind him that eating unknown berries from the middle of the woods probably isn’t the best of ideas.

“Logan!” he calls. “Do you think these are edible?”

Logan strolls over at an easy amble, peering at the berry clump cradled in Thomas’s hand. “You brought snacks from home,” he points out, and of course he’s right – there’s several energy bars and at least one bag of trail mix tucked inside Thomas’s backpack next to his water bottle, and more back at home.

“Yeah, but – ” Thomas gives him a pleading look. “Fresh berries! Fresh berries direct from the _forest._ How often do I get to try those?”

Logan sighs, and bends forwards, pushing his glasses up his nose and frowning. “It’s not as if I have any particular expertise in this area, you know. They certainly _appear_ to be blackberries, but if you feel any particular inclination towards eating them, I’d advise performing a quick internet search and confirming that in more detail.”

“Gotcha,” Thomas says. He tugs his phone out, because the berries really do look delicious, and is disappointed to realize that this deep in the forest, he’s got no reception at all. He sighs. “Aw, man. Nevermind, I guess.”

“Hey, Lo!” Patton says. Thomas looks over, momentarily distracted from his disappointment over the berries. He’s jogging lightly across the clearing in their direction. His hands are full of flowers of all shapes and sizes, evidently somewhat roughly torn from the ground, judging by the variety of stem lengths and the missing petals. “D’you know how to make flower crowns? I’ve always wanted to do those!”

“You’re popular today,” Thomas says happily.

Logan straightens up, also looking rather pleased, and says, “This I _do_ know. It’s a simple form of braiding, actually – pass me some of those _taraxacum officinale_ and I’ll show you –”

“Dandelions,” says Janus, opening his slitted eye halfway, from where he's lying some distance across from the clearing. “You can just call them dandelions, Logan, it’s _okay._ ”

Logan makes a tiny noise of annoyance, and sighs. “...Pass me some dandelions.”

Thomas glances around as Patton plops down right next to Logan and begins to mirror Logan’s flower-weaving with slightly clumsier fingers. He sees that Virgil appears to be dozing lightly in the sunlight, looking genuinely happy and content, and that Roman and Remus appear to be having some kind of tree-climbing competition. Roman seems to be the only one properly engaging in it, because he’s determinedly hauling himself up what looks like the tallest tree in the clearing, while Remus is currently sitting on a very low-hanging branch, hard at work bothering a group of somewhat bemused scrub jays.

Thomas waves up at both of them. They both wave back with more-or-less equal levels of enthusiasm.

Remus points animatedly at one of the birds on the branch above him, yelling in earnest amazement, “They’re so small! I could eat one, just like a marshmallow!”

“Please don’t do that!” Thomas yells back.

“Thomas!” Roman exclaims, his loud, confident voice carrying perfectly well from his height. “I have another one!”

“A song?” Thomas calls. Roman nods, and gives him a thumbs-up. “Go for it, buddy!”

Roman grins, extends his arm heavenwards, and sings out – in a clear, bright tone, with a catchy, cheerful melody – “ _My honey’s smile is warm - warm and bright, like a glowing fire!_ ”

Thomas bounces on his feet, the same excitement and giddiness that he gets when a really excellent idea strikes him from nowhere filling him from head to toe. “Hey, that’s _great!_ Is there any more? – what’s it about?”

“No idea!” Roman shouts cheerfully. “But it’s something, isn’t it?”

“Sure is! Keep plugging away at it, buddy – I know you’ll get there eventually!”

“Of course!” he exclaims, and then gestures down at the bush of berries that Thomas is still standing right next to. “And speaking of brilliant ideas – have you considered taking a selection of those delectable-looking treats home with you? If internet connection is the problem, I know for a fact we have plenty of that back at the house.”

“Yes!” Thomas says, another bolt of excitement flooding through him. “Thanks, Roman – I just need to find something to put them in.” He hesitates. “Hey – Jan-?”

“No, I’m not allowing my hat to end up as a makeshift berry basket,” Janus replies without looking up or even opening his eyes. “Not that it would have done you much good, anyway. And, not to give out any sort of good advice or hints or anything or the sort, but you _may_ want to try looking for a slightly more, you know, _substantial_ receptacle.”

“...Good point.” Thomas tugs off his backpack, and starts hunting through it. Even as he does, he feels a weight land on the top of his head, and he yelps in alarm, hands going up to his hair, where something is now resting. He feels petals and leaves, and tugs it off his head, pulling it down to eye level. He smiles when he sees what it is – a wreath made out of flowers of every color, braided in a way that makes it most definitely resemble a rainbow gradient.

“Sorry, kiddo – didn’t mean to startle you,” Patton says from right behind him.

Thomas, still examining the intricately woven flower crown, turns around to see that his sense of morality is wearing a considerably less cohesive-looking chain of similarly multicolored flowers that drape all over his head, spilling down off his shoulders and catching in folds of his hoodie.

“Logan helped me make it – you can take it or leaf it!” Patton’s grin drops slightly for a second. “...But seriously I hope you like it because if you don’t I might start crying, it was so hard to find the right flowers you have _no_ idea –”

“Aw – it’s great, Pat, don’t worry,” says Thomas, meaning it completely. He bends his head down slightly so Patton can ruffle his hair and then carefully place the wreath back into place – and as he does, sees that Logan’s wearing a flower crown of his own, obviously Patton-made by the scattered color scheme and less-than-accurate weaving.

When the crown’s in place and Patton’s given him the big double thumbs-up of approval, Thomas succeeds in tracking down the large-ish ziplock bag with a loose amount of trail mix rattling around at the bottom from the depths of his backpack.

As Logan leans over to hook a crown of sunflowers and begonias over the top of Janus’s hat, Roman and Remus come down from the trees to join the gradually forming circle. Roman declares Thomas’s crown ‘a suitably gay flower crown for a gay forest king’ before going over to help Logan finish making flower crowns for everyone else there, because apparently that’s what’s happening, while Thomas sets about distributing trail mix so he’ll have an empty bag for berry-collection purposes.

Remus wants mushrooms and poison ivy in his crown. Logan can work out a way to do the former, but point-blank refuses to do the latter, and the resulting wreath is mossy and rotted in appearance, with quite a few spiky and thorny vines thrown in as a compromise. Patton takes most of the chocolate chips and M&Ms, while Virgil is strangely partial to the nuts. Roman has mostly roses in his own crown, and likes raisins, and Logan claims all the strange grainy parts of the trail mix that nobody else seems to like.

A short while later, they’re all kind of dozing around on the grass, covered in flowers, and Thomas is so thrilled with this delightful turn of events that he takes a bunch of photos on his phone – which are all technically selfies, when you think about it – which none of them actually end up objecting to.

Thomas stands up, empty plastic bag in hand, and goes over to load it full of possibly-blackberries. There’s quite a lot of them, so at least he won’t be starved for choice.

“Hey, isn’t that a fairy ring?” Patton says, propping his chin up with one hand as he gazes over in Thomas’s direction. Thomas glances down and sees that, yeah, the mushrooms he had been so carefully avoiding before are in fact part of a larger circular pattern.

They’re perfect mushrooms, too – the platonic ideal of what a mushroom should be like; bright red with white speckled spots – and they’re circling the area he’s standing in. It’s such a charming sight that he has to take a moment to process it.

“You should be careful, Thomas!” Roman says, adjusting his flower crown and beaming. “You might end up trapped in there forever if you end up doing something wrong!”

“Something wrong like picking berries!” Remus adds. “Fairy berries!”

Virgil doesn’t actually voice anything at this, because apparently fairy tales are a step too far for him to be actually anxious about, but his back does tense up just a bit. It would be barely noticeable if you didn’t know him.

Thomas laughs and starts picking berries – placing them carefully in the bag so as not to squish them. “Trapped in here forever? That doesn’t sound right.” He steps back and forth over the edge of the mushroom circle experimentally, and waves a hand over the nonexistent barrier.

“You’d be more likely to end up dancing until your feet fall off,” Logan says, “if we’re alluding to the more classical Irish or British folklore.”

“Literally?” Remus wonders.

“Considering the casual viciousness of the original tales of the fae, I wouldn’t be surprised,” he replies. “Although I really must point out that so-called ‘fairy rings’ are often formed by underground fungal abnormalities.”

“So you’re saying that the fairies aren’t going to erupt out of the earth and drag us down to their underground palace so I can be their fabulous gay consort for now and evermore?” Roman says. “Sad.”

“All previous circular fungal encounters point to no,” says Logan.

“Pity,” yawns Janus, and takes the flower crown off of his hat. He starts unwinding it carefully, until it’s one long chain, and then drapes it around his shoulders like a boa, or a particularly floral-looking snake. “I was rather looking forward to that.”

“I –” Thomas is about to raise a light objection but, upon second consideration, he finds he rather likes the idle fantasy. “Nope, actually, that _does_ sound pretty neat. Fairies, take me away!”

“Any fairy would be lucky to have us,” Roman agrees happily.

Thomas finishes picking the berries in a matter of minutes, and stows the bag carefully in his backpack, before glancing up at the sky. The sun’s lowering already. It’s not exactly getting late, but he knows it’s definitely about time he started heading back. He kind of wants to make it home before sunset. It’s not that he actually has anything on tonight, but he doesn’t really feel like walking through the forest or driving back while it’s dark.

The Sides help gather up anything that they’ve brought along or left on the ground – there’s not much to speak of – and, with the entire group trailing a lot more flower petals than they had entered the forest with, Logan navigates them back to the main path and from there, all the way back to the parking lot.

“You know what?” says Virgil, as they all pile somewhat awkwardly into Thomas’s tiny car. “This has been a good day.” He audibly struggles for a second before adding. “I’m glad we did this.”

“Me too,” Thomas says, watching Janus and Patton bicker softly over who’s taking the middle seat through the rearview mirror. “Thanks for coming, guys – it wouldn’t be nearly as fun without you.”

“It’s not as if we could _not_ come,” Logan points out – he had called shotgun (with the aid of one of his vocabulary cards) and is now busy programming the route home into Thomas’s phone. “But – nonetheless – yes. A very pleasant and healthy outing, all-in-all.”

The drive home is uneventful, apart from the fact that Remus is clinging to the roof of the car and screaming at the top of his lungs for almost the whole trip. Whether it’s in delight, or something else, it’s very hard to tell. (Thomas desperately hopes this is one of those Side-related things that most people just don’t pay attention to, but he can never really be sure until he gets that fateful call from the police.)

Upon unlocking the house, and heading inside, Janus, Patton and the twins sink away into the depths of Thomas’s mind. Virgil curls up on the couch, looking kind of worn-out, and Logan starts putting away the contents of his bag, reminding him to get a start on dinner.

“First things first,” says Thomas, and goes to search up the identity of his berries.

A quick Google and a few comparisons confirm that yes, the dark berries in his bag do appear to be blackberries. He hesitantly nibbles at the corner of one to double-check, and the slightly-familiar taste explodes in his mouth. He can’t help but gobble a few more down, because they’re _delicious._ Perfectly sweet and juicy, and even the fact that they’re slightly warm from the insulation of his backpack and the car trip back can’t ruin that.

Inspiration strikes, suddenly. “Logan – hey, Logan, do you think I can make a pie out of these?”

“Have you ever made a pie before?” Virgil says from the couch, and then, “Don’t answer that, I know you haven’t. This can only end badly.”

Logan’s already in the kitchen, opening drawers and cupboards. “Pie crust generally requires flour, salt, sugar, and butter, all of which you have here,” he says. “I don’t see why not. You’ll never know if you don’t try.”

“You’ll make a mess,” says Virgil. “Also, you’re tired. Is it really worth the effort?”

For a second, Thomas is swayed from the initial allure of fresh pie, but then his resolve hardens. “If I make a mess, I make a mess,” he decides. “I think I’m going to do this. Don’t you want pie?” Virgil looks unconvinced, so Thomas presses further. “I’ll let you choose the cooking music.”

“Ugh, _fine._ ”

Thomas switches on Spotify on his phone, and pulls up the very first blackberry pie recipe he can find on his computer. Virgil snatches up the phone and starts scrolling through their extensive list of playlists, eventually settling on his own. Even as Thomas begins to assemble the crust ingredients, the soft sounds of lo-fi hip hop spills out through the kitchen. The sky is beginning to fade into twilight outside, and the lights inside are soft and warm. Virgil crawls up to sit on the counter next to Thomas, keeping a vigilant eye on the oven, as Thomas mixes the ingredients vigorously in a large bowl, wishing he actually had an apron. He’ll have to buy one next time he’s in... well, a place that sells aprons.

Logan switches on the oven to preheat, because he’s sensible and the backbone of the kitchen in general and they’d never get anything done without him, and Thomas starts rolling out the dough onto a countertop that’s dusted lightly with flour.

Roman strolls in through the door at this point and declares that he’s obviously the best person to assemble the pie crust, seeing as it’s going to take immense skill to get it looking absolutely perfect. Thomas shuffles over to leave him to it, and starts puzzling out the pie filling.

Half an hour (and a lot of splattered berries and cursing) later, the pie goes into the oven, as does a pre-made pizza that Thomas unearths from his freezer, and at Logan’s prodding, he throws together a hasty salad from the lettuce and tomatoes and carrots lying around in his fridge. And by the time he and Logan and Roman have finished cleaning up the pie-related mess (Virgil’s still keeping an eye near-compulsively on the timers and the oven), the food is golden brown and smelling fantastic.

“You’ve got a bottle of wine here,” says Janus, who’s suddenly at the cupboard and digging through it.

“Aren’t you saving that for a special occasion?” Patton says, peering around the corner of the kitchen. “You might need it later. If your friends come around or something.”

“Nah.” Thomas tosses the oven mitt he’d used to tug the pizza out sideways, and Janus catches it easily with a sideways smirk. “Tonight’s pretty special already – let’s make it better.” He takes the wine from Janus’s offering grasp with a nod and a smile, and moves the pizza and salad into the living room, to eat on the couch.

Dinner is pleasant. Everyone shows up, even Remus, and are more-or-less civil to each other. None of the Sides actually eat – apparently full of snack food from their impromptu picnic – although Patton does try and steal a slice or two of his pizza. Conversation is as easy and light as it had been in the forest, and by the time Thomas goes to retrieve the pie from the oven, he’s made his way through one-and-a-half glasses of wine and is feeling light and bubbly and a little tipsy.

The pie is a little burnt around the edges and slightly lopsided, despite Roman’s best efforts. But it’s delicious. It hadn’t needed much sugar at all, and the blackberries remain perfectly juicy and sweet even when hot. Thomas polishes off two slices before Virgil starts to nag him gently about calories and he decides to clear up the food and dishes, then have a shower; maybe watch an episode or two of The Office before calling it a night.

And that’s just what he does. In fact, he’s in his pyjamas and in bed by nine-thirty, which is downright incredible by his standards. It’s been a long day, but he’s happily exhausted, and strangely satisfied with his mental health – and when he wakes up tomorrow, he’s going to get on with his work (and that’s definitely not a lie, thank you very much, Janus).

“Good night, guys,” he calls out, and receives a chorus of sleepy good night wishes in response. He grins into the darkness, knowing that the reassuring solid figures of his fractalized personality will be there if he needs them.

He’s asleep before he even realizes he’s drifting, and he’s _happy._


	2. virgil

And then Virgil is suddenly aware of his surroundings.

It’s not exactly like he opens his eyes and wakes up. It’s more like a sudden transition from _not there_ to _there_ and it’s perfectly seamless, like he’s popped in from nowhere to scare everyone with a sudden entrance, except... except, he hadn’t been doing that. He’s pretty sure he’d actually been asleep. So what’s up with this sudden burst of consciousness?

He’s sitting on the bottom few steps of the living room staircase. Outside of the drawn blinds, the world is dark and silent. At a guess, he’d say it’s somewhere past midnight.

“Something’s wrong,” he says, before he can even think to do anything else.

“You always say that,” Roman points out, and – oh, good, Princey’s here too. That’s something. That’s definitely a thing. Whether that thing is good or bad remains to be seen.

He looks around; sees that everyone else is there as well, in their normal positions, looking as perfectly alert as he feels, and just as confused. Logan, right next to the staircase; Patton, in front of the curtains, Roman, beside the television – although Remus is there too. His eyes glint, catlike, in the dimness of the room. For once, he’s not saying anything. He’s just scanning the surroundings warily. Watching, waiting.

“What is this?” comes a voice from behind him – and Virgil jolts quite a bit, whirling around to see that Janus is standing on the staircase right behind him. Virgil half-expects him to look dishevelled and exhausted, as if he’s just been dragged out of bed unexpectedly, but, no – he looks just as ordinary and untouched as the rest of them.

There’s a nauseating feeling running all the way through Virgil, a prickling-under-the-skin feeling all over his body that something’s terribly, awfully, dreadfully wrong. “Who did this? Who pulled us out here? What’s going on, guys?”

“It wasn’t me!” says Roman immediately – defensively, as if it’s something that Virgil’s trying to blame him for as opposed to a completely reasonable question about an extremely unreasonable situation.

Remus just shakes his head. “You know pulling out isn’t my style,” he says, although it falls slightly flatter than it usually would.

“Of course I’d want to bring us all here at two o’clock in the damn morning, that sounds like a _great_ idea,” Janus snaps, even as Patton and Logan just shake their heads.

The thrumming feeling of _wrong wrong wrong_ gets stronger. Virgil feels like he’s about to vibrate right out of his skin with the intensity of it all. He feels like screaming and can’t understand why nobody else is. Can’t they feel this?

“Listen, Thomas – ” Logan begins, adjusting his glasses, and then freezes like he’s been electrocuted. So does everyone else, really, because it’s at this very moment that the realization of _what,_ exactly, is so wrong, strikes them all. They’re in the living room, in Thomas’s house – in _their_ house – and everything is exactly as it should be except for the fact that Thomas, their _very reason for existing,_ is nowhere to be seen.

There’s a pause where nobody seems to know how to speak, and Patton breaks the silence with a, “Hey, Thomas – kiddo?”

No response.

Thomas can walk away from them, of course. He’s wandered out of frame in videos once or twice, left them to their arguing and debating. He doesn’t even need to be in the same room as them all of the time, so this shouldn’t be nearly as unsettling as it is.

“Well,” says Roman, looking unsure, “well – I’m sure he’s got to be around here somewhere. It’s not like he could have just _disappeared._ Is it?”

That particular question goes unanswered, mainly because – at least in Virgil’s case – they don’t actually _know._ It’s not like there’s much precedent for this, or anyone they can check with.

“His bedroom,” Logan suggests. “Seeing as it’s the last place that we – he was – ”

“I’ll check there,” says Patton. “Maybe he’s still asleep and this is just a weird mental glitch!”

He looks pale and drawn and worried in a way that he never is unless they’re all sick, or if he’s in the middle of a particularly vicious moral dilemma. And almost immediately, he’s hurrying up the stairs – past both Virgil and Janus, who obligingly shuffle aside to allow him passage.

“Bathroom,” Remus proposes, already scurrying off in that direction.

Logan’s heading off, with purpose, towards the front door – apparently intending to check around that area and outside.

But Virgil’s attention is drawn to the dark, shadowy square of the kitchen window beyond the base of the staircase. There is a soft shuffling and scraping coming from within, the steady sound of running water, and the very faint sound of someone breathing heavily. The lights are off inside, and it’s very, _very_ dark, which is why they hadn’t noticed it before, but the shadowy figure moving around within has successfully caught Virgil’s attention. And his nerves. His heart speeds up.

“Thomas?” he calls, but there’s no response – the strange noises continue and the figure continues to move in strange jerky movements in the shadows of the kitchen, and the breathing grows even more ragged. Virgil feels his entire body tighten up, his stomach twisting into elaborate knots.

Virgil reaches up, and tugs at Janus’s sleeve. He looks down, and then over at the kitchen door, and back at Virgil with a serious expression that could almost certainly be interpreted as worry. He presses a single gloved finger to his lips carefully, gently and helps Virgil to his feet. They both head down the stairs, and over to Roman, the only other one left in the living room.

Roman makes a face of abject confusion at them and their sudden silence. When Virgil indicates towards the kitchen window, and Roman pauses to look and listen, he almost immediately stiffens. He reaches for a sword that isn’t there, frowns and curses colorfully to himself under his breath, and snatches up an umbrella from where it’s lying near the couch. Virgil sees a knife lying on the coffee table, left over from last night’s dinner, and snatches it up. It’s only a butter knife, but it makes him feel slightly better. Even if his heart feels like it’s about to beat its way right out of his chest.

Together, they creep around the side of the kitchen, down the short hallway lined with colorful framed pictures turned monochrome by the late hour, and to the door, which is open just the slightest crack.

Roman takes the lead, and throws open the door.

A dim figure can be seen, hunched over the kitchen table. There’s a terrible smell in the air, pervading every inch of the space, and there’s a persistent dripping noise coming from somewhere to the right. But the moment the door had opened, all movement inside the room had ceased completely. There’s a dreadful stillness in the air – the moment before a storm, chaos waiting to break loose.

“Show yourself,” Roman calls into the darkness, sounding a lot more confident than Virgil feels.

Janus, behind him and in front of Virgil, just sighs, and reaches for the light switch.

With a _click_ that seems louder than absolutely necessary, the scene is revealed in stark, flickering fluorescent light.

Virgil’s knuckles go tight around the handle of his useless weapon. He hears a sharp intake of breath from Janus next to him, and Roman’s soft, incredulous, “What the _fuck_ ,” but he’s barely paying attention.

The kitchen looks like a bomb’s gone off in it. Or maybe several bombs, or maybe like someone tossed several garbage bags into the air and fired gunshots into them until their contents had been entirely splattered every inch of surface, because that’s more or less precisely what it looks like. The walls and floor and – yes, even the ceiling, _ugh_ – are splattered with food of every color and type and texture. The fridge door is hanging open, and the light inside is flickering dimly. There’s nothing inside. The food isn’t in the fridge now. It’s everywhere else. It’s haphazardly strewn left right and centre – sauces spilling out of the broken remains of jars and bottles, butter smeared across the countertops in greasy swipes and fingerprints, flour and broken raw spaghetti all over the place. There’s raw meat in the sink and on the walls, and water covering a significant amount of the floor. The cutlery drawer has been upended, and there is at least one carving knife sticking, still quivering, out of the linoleum floor. There’s sugar spilling over the knocked-over chairs on the floor, and at least one of those chairs seems to be broken – snapped in two. Over all this, the tap steadily runs, trickling into the sink.

And there’s _dirt._ It’s in the mud that streaks the floor and ceiling, mixed in with some of the more disgusting-looking sauces and liquids; in the footprints that lead up to the kitchen table, where the pot is resting. And where Thomas is.

The pot is the largest one Thomas owns, a big stainless-steel cooking pot that’s probably meant to be used for cooking extravagant amounts of pasta. It’s not being used for that right now. It’s filled to the brim with a disgusting, viscous-looking liquid that looks like it contains just about every single item of food in the house. It’s green, but the sort of green that you only see where illnesses and badly-wallpapered hotel rooms are concerned; and it’s bubbling faintly despite not being heated by any stove, flame or source of heat at all.

And bent over this repulsive mixture – eyes wild, hair askew, in his pyjamas and dirt-encrusted bare feet – is Thomas Sanders. He would be almost unrecognizable if Virgil didn’t know his face exactly as well as he does his own. There is quite a lot of that green sickly-looking liquid stained down his shirtfront and arms, although none of it is actually on his face. He doesn’t seem to notice their entrance at all, and, on top of that, he’s muttering wildly to himself under his breath. It’s inaudible and unintelligible, but it still sends terrible shivers of dread up and down Virgil’s spine.

“What is – oh, good _lord!_ ”

That’s Logan, approaching from behind. He’s stopped in the doorframe, behind the three of them and appears to be bluescreening, judging by his open mouth and completely stunned, horrified expression.

“What’s going on?” Roman says, turning to Janus, then Virgil, then a still-stunned Logan – which isn’t to say that all of them aren’t just as shocked and horrified as he looks. “Who’s doing this – is this one of you? Is this – _Remus!_ Is this you?”

Remus skitters towards them, as if summoned by the mere mention of him, and cheers, “I smell something _terrible!_ Is this – ” – and then he just about crashes into the assembled group at the door as he sees what’s going on.

His eyes go wide and his hands twitch spasmodically, and he makes a dreadful tiny choking noise in the back of his throat that sounds like a cat trying to hack up a hairball and failing miserably.

“ _What,_ ” he says flatly, and for once, appears genuinely lost for words.

“This isn’t you?” Roman presses, seeming torn between looking at Thomas, who’s gazing out the kitchen window with an indescribable look in his eyes.

“How can this be me?” Remus demands. “What – do you think he’d actually _listen_ to me if I suggested something as extravagant as this?”

Patton is the last to arrive, apparently drawn back downstairs by the noise and chaos. He takes one look at the nightmarish kitchen scene, and goes pale. Pushing roughly past the small doorway crowd, he heads right towards Thomas at top speed – despite everyone instantly protesting and grabbing at him, trying to pull him back. It’s no use. A determined Patton is hard to stop, of course.

Virgil skids into the kitchen right behind him, because he’s got that overwhelming dread seeping into every inch of his body, and it’s getting stronger with every passing second, and if he isn’t there to back him up, _Patton is going to fucking die;_ he just knows it.

Patton nearly slips on several of the assorted liquid and food piles littering the ground, but manages to make it to Thomas and grab his arm none-too gently. “Kiddo. Tommy, Tomathy, Tomato – _Thomas._ Not to use strong language, but what the _heck_ is going on here?”

Thomas jolts, blinks twice, and then turns slowly to look at Patton – then over to the rest of them. It seems to take a moment for the situation to register for him.

“Oh,” he says eventually. “Hey, guys. What’s up?”

Virgil isn’t sure if he’s more furious or more terrified. This isn’t right. _None of this_ is right. “ _What’s_ …? Thomas, you wrecked your _entire damn kitchen_ is what’s up! Look at this place, it’s – “ He struggles for words for a long, long moment, then settles on, “What’s gotten into you? And why didn’t you call any of us?”

“Oh,” says Thomas again, and once more, he blinks. His eyes are bright, Virgil notices. An unnatural sort of brightness. Not like he’s been crying or as if he’s excited or anything, they’re just... bright. “I... I didn’t need you guys. Not for this.”

The fact that Thomas is speaking and appears to be at least somewhat coherent is enough for the rest of the assembled Sides to venture into the room. Logan is eyeing the mess on the walls and counters and ceiling with a very odd expression on his face. Roman wastes no time in rushing up directly to Thomas and clasping his face between his hands; examining him thoroughly and peering, worried, into his eyes.

Thomas doesn’t protest the treatment, although he does look a bit uncomfortable when the eye contact goes on for longer than ten seconds. His eyes flicker away momentarily to the darkness beyond the kitchen windows, and then – reluctantly – back to everyone else. “Seriously, Roman, I’m _fine._ ”

“Then what’s up with the whole... Professor Snape impression?” he says, indicating the room as a whole.

“It’s nothing,” insists Thomas. “Absolutely nothing. You guys can go back to bed. I’ll be there too in a bit, after I clean up.”

Something is wrong, Virgil knows – _very_ wrong. And it’s not just the state of the kitchen or the green slop in the pot or the fact that Thomas has seemingly forgotten entirely how their existences work and how closely tied-in they are with his own. It’s taken him a full minute to pinpoint exactly what it is that’s making his flesh crawl and his stomach flip and his heart thump along like he’s a nervous rabbit, but when it dawns upon him, he feels dizzy – as if he’s just been pushed off an extremely tall building with the ground nowhere in sight.

For all of the fear and confusion and yes, _anxiety,_ that has basically overtaken Virgil’s entire being at the moment, there isn’t even the slightest trace of any of that on Thomas’s face. And that isn’t right. It just isn’t. Not at all. Virgil and Thomas are a neverending loop, feeding into each other and from each other forever and ever, but now it’s just Virgil feeding into himself, and he can’t feel the slightest bit of _anything_ from Thomas. No anxiety, no fear, _nothing._ A quick glance at Patton confirms that he’s noticing the exact same thing, and he doesn’t appear to be dealing with it any better than Virgil is.

Janus has the same strange expression that Logan has, but there’s quite a lot of fear visible in it, too.

“If it’s nothing,” he says, “then why are you so intent on hiding it from all of us?”

Thomas looks at Janus properly and a look of complete disgust crosses over his face. It’s so sudden and violent that it makes Virgil actually take a step back, but it’s gone as quickly as it appeared. Thomas’s face is blank and impassive once more.

“I’m making something,” he tells them. “You wouldn’t understand.”

“This isn’t right,” decides Virgil, finally saying aloud what he’s been thinking in a near-continuous panicked loop ever since they all fell into consciousness in the living room. “None of this is right.”

Thomas hisses something sharply under his breath, and Logan startles, his eyes going sharp, and says, “What was _that?_ ”

“I don’t know,” says Thomas. “Can you guys leave now?”

“Thomas, that sounded like Gaelic,” Logan says. “You don’t _know_ Gaelic.”

A pause.

“Leave me alone,” Thomas tells them. His voice is flatter, now. His eyes glint bright in the pale fluorescent light, which flickers once more, then dims – casting the room into dull, sharp shadow.

“Thomas, this isn’t right,” Patton says, and takes his arm once more, as if to gently escort him away. “C’mon, let’s go – let’s just get you back to bed, and then maybe we can call someone? Joan, or Mom, or – ”

“ _No!_ ” Thomas roars, so loud and angry that they’re all momentarily stunned. Thomas rips his arm back from Patton’s grasp with a snarl. He doesn’t hesitate in the least. Heading directly for the window leading to the rest of the living room, he _sprints_. It’s so uncharacteristically violent and jerky that nobody moves to stop him. Nobody except Remus.

Thomas scrambles up onto the countertop to pull himself up and over and through, but Remus leaps and slides sideways across the linoleum surface, intercepting him halfway. The two of them go crashing to the ground, getting covered in the mess and filth carpeting the ground as they thrash around wildly – Remus trying to get a hold on Thomas; Thomas just trying to escape. Thomas seems to have abandoned all pretence of acting like a normal, rational human being, and is snarling and hissing like a rabid animal, attempting to claw at Remus’s face and throat.

Remus still looks faintly dumbfounded and excited from what must be the realization of quite a lot of his disturbing self-destructive fantasies all at once, but he’s still managing to fend off Thomas’s wild attacks with remarkable restraint. Still, it’s not hard to miss the look of faint horror on his face. Apparently seeing Thomas going absolutely feral with his base instincts isn’t as fulfilling as he thought it would be.

“Dissociative fugue?” Logan murmurs under his breath.

“Maybe, but let’s not overanalyse; it’s _not the time,_ ” Virgil hisses back. He doesn’t want to analyse this. He just wants it to _stop._

Remus manages to pin a still-struggling Thomas against one of the cupboard doors, and Roman hurries over to assist him.

“Thomas – Thomas, come here, look at me,” Janus murmurs, kneeling down; reaching out to him.

“Fuck you!” Thomas snarls, spit curling over the edge of his lip. “Fuck you, fuck you, _fuck you_ – get off of me, don’t you dare _touch_ me, you filthy rotten lying motherfucking cowardly son of a - “

“ _Whoa_ there!” Patton squeaks, although Thomas keeps cursing and spitting and growling. “Let’s all just calm down a bit here. I’m sure this is all just some kind of misunderstanding – “

Janus has Thomas’s face between his hands as the twins continue to restrain him, and he’s examining him just as intently as Roman had been, minutes ago. Thomas is very much not happy about this, and is making his displeasure known quite loudly and clearly – writhing and howling and kicking out ineffectually against the tiled floor.

“Shh,” coos Janus, even though it does nothing at all to placate him, and frowns. “You smell like flowers. Why do you smell like flowers?”

Virgil leans in, and catches a thick, floral scent wafting from Thomas that he actually can’t believe he had missed before. It’s like he’s dunked himself in some perfume, in addition to going completely hogwild in the kitchen.

In response, Thomas spits out something musical and lilting that still manages to sound utterly filthy, and then something that seems to be as Gaelic in origin as his previous muttering, and then headbutts Remus fiercely in the stomach, causing him to briefly release him. Thomas’s arm snaps out to one side, and all of a sudden there’s a wickedly sharp-looking carving knife in his hand, retrieved from where it was discarded on the ground.

“ _Whoa there!_ ” Roman yells, immediately releasing Thomas’s other arm. Janus also skids backwards, making a hasty retreat.

Virgil can’t blame either of them. Thomas, _normal_ Thomas, would usually never entertain so much as tripping someone as a prank, for fear that they might actually get hurt. But it’s quite clear by now that this is _not_ normal Thomas. And right now, this Thomas seems perfectly willing to stab a bitch.

Roman and Virgil are between Thomas and the open counter, and the door is closer to him anyway – but Logan’s blocking it. So when Thomas springs to his feet and makes a break for it again, Logan’s eyes go wide and his hands go up as if that’s going to do anything. The knife goes up, and Thomas’s expression flips from crazed to perfectly, utterly calm. There’s still that bright, horrible glint in his eyes, but as the knife arcs downwards, right towards Logan’s throat, he seems almost serene. More like he’s taking a walk in the park than about to commit grievous bodily harm against his Logic.

Virgil barely has enough time to get a split-second’s worth of wondering what the _hell_ is going to happen if Thomas actually _murders one of his Sides in cold blood,_ before the knife comes swinging down.

Logan lets out a shrill scream that’s so unlike him it physically hurts.

There is the airy _swish_ of metal through air and then a dull _thunk_ – and then solid, uncaring, disbelieving silence.

“Thomas,” says Logan, frozen in place.

“Logan,” Thomas croaks, sounding ragged and anguished. It strikes a terrible chord of resonance deep within Virgil’s chest, and he feels like crying. The knife is buried in the dark wood of the doorframe inches away from Logan’s head, with Thomas’s hands still wrapped around the hilt, but he jerks away from it – hands releasing with a spasmodic twitch. He takes a step back, and then one forward, trembling with apparent exertion. “Logan, help me –”

Logan pushes himself up from where he’s half-fallen against the closed door, looking anxious and almost as desperate as Thomas sounds. “Of course, Thomas; of course I’ll help you – what do you need? What is it?”

But that cold mask of indifference and mania has fallen across Thomas’s face again, and any trace of fear and panic has disappeared as quickly as it had emerged. He’s already reaching for the knife in the doorframe again; tugging it free. The floral scent has become more pronounced, somehow – it almost manages to overwhelm the meat and the liquids and the general smell of gradually curdling and rotting food permeating the room.

Patton’s holding up his hands placatingly. “Come on, Thomas, put down the knife, let’s talk this out – ”

Virgil lets out a growl of frustration. “Pat, that’s not going to work and you _know_ it,” he snaps. “I’m sorry, but – either start helping or just shut _up_.”

There is a split second of absolute, perfect silence.

Thomas manages to wrench the knife out from the wood. He looks up, and he looks _hungry_ when he lets out a rather deranged-sounding – and weirdly melodic – giggle.

“Oh, all _right_ ,” says Patton, with a tone of voice that indicates that he was aware of just how unhelpful his previous comments had been and is now ready to go completely fucking feral, and throws himself at Thomas’s legs in a rather unorthodox rugby tackle, with a suddenness and ferocity that surprises all of them – Thomas included, apparently. He goes down like a sack of bricks, the knife falling out of his hand and going skittering across the floor.

Patton isn’t strong enough to hold him down for long, and Thomas squirms his way violently out of the hold of his morality – ironically enough, elbowing him in the face in the process and showing no signs of remorse whatsoever as he does. He goes for the door again, kicking Logan in the legs and stomping on his feet when he tries to stop him, and wrenches it open. Then he’s off like a shot into the rest of the house.

“Someone stop him!” Virgil yells, and Remus is already sprinting through the house with Roman close on his heels, but even as they pass out of sight there is a snarl of fury from Thomas and the sound of bodies impacting the wall – _one, two –_ and Remus swearing loudly, creatively and extensively.

The front door slams fiercely open, and Virgil rounds the corner just in time to see Thomas racing out onto the street, still barefoot. Bizarrely, he wants to yell after him – to remind him of the dangers of running on the _road_ at _night_ with _nothing on his feet_ , what if there’s _glass,_ and not to mention all of the other dangers lurking out there in the dark – but obviously that’s not going to do him, or anyone else for that matter, any good at all.

Virgil takes a moment to mourn the loss of whatever small amount of respect Thomas’s neighbours might have remaining for him, and then the _flight_ part of his near-constant fight-flight-freeze instinct takes over, and before he can even stop to think or consider, he’s already sprinting out the door after Thomas, overtaking everybody else. To his surprise, he sees that Thomas isn’t actually heading down the street in either direction (although he isn’t sure what he _should_ have been expecting, really), and instead, he’s rounded into the narrow alleyway leading to the side of the house. His bare feet go _slap slap slap_ against the bricks as he dashes. It’s a strangely normal sound, like something he’d hear if an overexcited eight-year-old were running laps around the outside of the house. But there’s no sound of Thomas breathing heavily, or at all.

Virgil continues to follow. Of course he does. What else is he supposed to do?

Once in the backyard, he can’t actually see where Thomas is heading – until he hears a thump and a rustle from over the back of the fence, and realizes what route he must have taken. He’s actually already gearing up to run and leap and follow, already cursing internally at how painful it’s going to be, but then he hears the others finally catching up – and with it, a helpful intervention.

“The gate!” comes Logan’s voice, from several metres behind him.

_God bless Logan Sanders,_ Virgil thinks, finally noticing what he hadn’t, and what Thomas apparently hasn’t, either – the gate leading to beyond the backyard, which they almost never bother to lock. He wrenches it open, and throws himself out into the night.

Beyond the gates and fences of this particular line of properties is a short stretch of grassy fields that become rockier and dirtier as you progress away from the residences, and then a forest. Not a very _big_ or impressive forest – certainly nothing like the one that they had visited yesterday – but a forest nonetheless. It’s usually thin enough in the tree department that you can more-or-less squint and see all the way through to the grassy hills on the other side, but right now – past midnight, with the wind blowing angrily in his ears and the clouds all but completely obscuring the large, full moon overhead – it looks dark and foreboding and endless.

And Thomas is running directly into it.

There’s a kind of terrible fluidity to the way that he’s running; an inhuman grace that further cements the now-almost-completely-concrete realization in Virgil’s head that something is terribly, dreadfully wrong and that _this isn’t Thomas_. This is only slightly marred by the fact that every few steps, he seems to be tripping on nothing – stumbling as if his limbs won’t entirely obey him.

Virgil uses these lapses, as well as a huge rush of adrenaline that surprises even him, to catch up to Thomas and grab him by the arm, pulling him back – just on the verge of crossing the threshold into the forest.

“ _No!_ ” he roars, expecting his voice to go all layered and demonic and world-shaking, but it does nothing of the short. It isn’t even as loud as he had been expecting it to be.

_“Let go of me!”_ Thomas screeches back, struggling and kicking at him. Virgil dodges the flailing arms and legs with his well-honed anxiety-fuelled reflexes, and starts attempting to haul Thomas back from the edge of the forest. It’s tough going. This wrong version of Thomas is freakishly strong, but Virgil can’t give up. He just can’t. He doesn’t know why, exactly, but he knows that if Thomas _does_ manage to make it to the treeline, something really extraordinarily terrible is going to happen.

It’s a battle that Virgil is almost certain he’s going to lose. But then all of a sudden, Thomas just... _stops._ Virgil nearly overbalances when it happens. He kind of droops on the spot, panting, like half his strings have been neatly snipped and he doesn’t know how to control his body.

“Thomas?” Virgil says, and then scrambles back to hold him up as he struggles to get his feet under him. “ _Thomas?_ ”

“Virgil,” Thomas breathes. He sounds like he’s been screaming for a while at the top of his lungs – voice hoarse and exhausted and barely there. His fingers tangle in the sleeves of Virgil’s hoodie, twisting into the fabric and gripping them weakly. “Virge. It’s you, you’re - you’re here.”

“It’s me,” Virgil agrees, heart racing along so fast that it’s basically making his entire body shake with each jolt at this point. Or maybe that’s just the cold night making him tremble, or maybe it’s the anxiety. He grabs Thomas’s wrists in turn, tugs at the soft fabric of his pyjama sleeves. “I don’t understand what’s happening. Tell me what’s happening – what’s wrong with you? How can I fix this?”

“Fix-?” For a second, Thomas has gained that distant, cold look again, but he shakes it off with a spasmodic shiver. “I don’t know. I don’t understand, either. I don’t – I don’t know if you _can_.”

He glances over his shoulder, back at the forest.

“He’s calling for me,” he chokes out. “I need to - I’ve got to - ”

“ _He’s_ calling for you? Thomas, what the hell are you talking about?”

“I need to go,” Thomas says, this time perfectly clearly. His eyes are bright again. His fingers loosen on Virgil’s sleeves, and it’s only the fact that Virgil’s holding onto him just as tightly that stops him from walking right into the forest, then and there.

Virgil tugs him closer; drags Thomas into a desperate bear hug – clinging to him fiercely, arms around his middle, head burying into his shoulder at an angle that’s sharp and painful. He doesn’t care about that. He doesn’t care about anything except preventing Thomas from _leaving._

“Don’t,” he pleads. “ _Don’t._ ”

Thomas stiffens again, and then Virgil feels him convulse in a sudden, abrupt sob, before his hands come up around Virgil and he’s hugging him back, just as fiercely.

“I’m sorry, I’m _sorry_ ,” he pants into Virgil’s shoulder. “I don’t want to, but he _wants_ me and he’s got me and – Virge, he’s _calling_ me. And _I can’t say no to him when he’s calling me._ ”

Virgil doesn’t ever want to let go, but what he’s saying is _very_ concerning and he needs to see Thomas properly, so he draws back to look at him, and – Thomas looks afraid. Really, really afraid. More terrified than Virgil could ever make him, even on a good (or, well, bad) day. For the first time all night, Virgil sees his own terror reflected perfectly back at him in Thomas’s face, and for a second, he feels like their normal emotional loop might be back in place. That things might be normal again.

Then Thomas says, “Virgil, you can’t let me go.”

“Wh-” Virgil grabs Thomas’s hands again in one sharp, panicked movement. He squeezes them. They’re sticky from the kitchen disaster and far, far too cold. “I’m not going to. I’m right here, I’m not leaving you. You know that.”

“You _can’t let me go,_ ” Thomas says. He squeezes back, looking absolutely _haunted_. Completely wrecked, in every conceivable sense. He barely seems to understand what he’s saying when he leans forwards and chants urgently at Virgil: “ _They will change me in your arms – into a deadly adder_ _–_ ”

“You’re not making any sense!” Virgil exclaims, desperate for answers. His fingers dig tighter into Thomas’s hands, and Thomas winces but doesn’t pull back. “I won’t let you go, but – _why?_ Why am I doing this?”

“Hold on,” Thomas begs, instead of answering, and his eyes are bright – but this time not with an otherworldly shine, because right now he’s crying. “Please – don’t let them take me – _hold on!_ ”

“I’ve got you,” Virgil breathes, and it quickly becomes a panicked sort of mantra. “I’ve got you, I’ve got you, _I’ve got you-_ “

The wind rushes and reaches out to engulf both of them. Virgil can barely breathe. The earth writhes under their feet, and he feels his grip on Thomas’s hands slipping. Even as he scrambles to tighten his grasp, he feels hands on his shoulders and fingers running down the back of his neck, and somebody laughs softly in his ear, and now Thomas is actively trying to pull away from him – strong and insistent.

“Leave me alone,” Thomas snaps. “Go away. I don’t need you for this. All I need is _him_.”

“ _I’ve got you!_ ,” Virgil roars. “I’ve got you! I’ve got you – _I’ve got you_. Don’t you dare run away from me – you _can’t_ run away from me! I’m your anxiety! Thomas, don’t let go -”

Fingers tighten around his neck decisively. The nails are too sharp and the angles are all wrong, and just as that thought properly processes for him, Virgil blacks out. Just for a second, his vision goes dark and blurry and he feels his fingers go limp and his legs collapse under him – and he feels Thomas’s cold, inhuman grasp slipping from his own. He tries to yell out – to call for Thomas, one of the others, _anyone –_ but his lips are just as inclined to disobey him as the rest of his body.

He hears the laughter again, silvery and cruel, and smells flowers – as thick and overpowering as if he’s just been shoved bodily into a flower shop – and then he hits the grass back-first, _hard,_ and the dull thud of the uncontrolled impact makes lights flash under his closed eyelids.

The next thing he knows is that a very worried-looking Patton is shaking him awake and Remus is yelling at the top of his lungs, demanding to know where Thomas is.

“He’s gone,” says Virgil, and he sits up so abruptly that he nearly collides face-first with Patton, and he nearly blacks out again from the spiral of dizziness that engulfs his mind and thoughts. “They took him. He’s not here anymore – they’ve got him and he’s gone into the forest and we aren’t getting him back, and _he’s gone._ ”

“Virgil.” Patton is shuffled out of the way, replaced by a pale-looking Logan who, nonetheless, crouches down elegantly next to him and takes his hands. “Breathe. You’re not making sense.”

“That’s what I told him,” Virgil mutters, and has to shut his eyes as the dizziness almost overwhelms again. His chest is tight. He feels like he’s dying, and wonders if it’s because of Thomas’s absence, or maybe he actually is dying, or maybe maybe maybe.

“Breathe,” says Logan, again. Wonderful, immovable, dependable Logan, who claims emotions are irrelevant but never fails to be there whenever they need him. They don’t _deserve_ Logan. Logan’s eyes are glimmering faintly. Like Thomas’s had been. He squeezes Virgil’s hands tightly. Like Thomas had. Oh god. Thomas. “Four-seven-eight – Virgil, _look at me._ Please.” Virgil looks at him. “Four seconds in. _Breathe with me._ ”

Virgil does not want to breathe with Logan. He wants Thomas back. He wants Thomas _okay._ He wants his heart to stop feeling like it’s going to collapse into a black hole and suck the rest of him into the singularity it causes. He wants to stop being in this dark field in the middle of the goddamn night with everybody else in varying states of shock and panic scattered all around him. He wants to be under the covers in a warm, cosy room with a mug of hot chocolate and a full queue of spooky Youtube videos, gradually drifting off to sleep to the rhythm of them.

...Virgil breathes. His head stops hurting quite so much, and the ache in his chest dulls minutely. His heart doesn’t slow down, but at least he can speak properly and coherently. Well, more or less.

“I’m sorry,” he says, nearly choking on it. “Guys, I’m – I’m so sorry. I fucked up.”

“Thomas,” Remus says, grabbing his shoulders roughly, and pressing his face right up close to Virgil’s – uncomfortably close, but with none of his usual maniac glee. Now it’s just maniac. “Where. Is. Thomas?”

Roman drags him back, and Janus almost immediately slides back in to fill the gap. “I know it might seem hard right now, but everything will be better if you just explain to us exactly what happened – _please,_ Virgil.” It’s sweet and calm and it’s _too sweet and calm_ and when Virgil looks at Janus he can see that he’s nearly on the brink of breaking, just like the all of them.

“Leave him alone – give him space!” Logan is demanding, but the moment they all file backwards and end up ringing him in a respectful sort of semi-circle, he finds that breathing is more difficult. He feels like he’s choking, feels like the wind whipping into him and ringing in his ears is too much, just too much; realizes that there’s no wind at all. Feels hot and cold and electric all at once. His voice is gone again.

“Virgil?” Roman asks softly, kindly – hesitantly.

Virgil presses his hands into the damp grass, digging his fingers in as if the cold dirt underneath can ground him somehow.

And, much to his shame, he begins to sob.


	3. janus

Remus is of the opinion that they should start searching through the forest immediately and thoroughly, with reckless abandon. He says this in far more incoherent terms, of course. There is screaming and swearing involved. And as much as Janus would like to do just that, going into the possibly-haunted, maybe-cursed forest that’s just taken Thomas from them is such a bad idea that expressing exactly how bad it is would take several hours that they don’t have. And there’s the matter of Virgil – still on the ground, shaking and looking like even more of a wreck than he usually does – and Logan, who looks as if he’s going to drive himself into a breakdown over trying (and failing) to extract even the slightest semblance of logic over what’s just happened.

This isn’t to say that everyone else doesn’t look just as bad . Hell, even Janus feels as if he’s going to fracture into a million glittering fractals if anyone so much as nudges him in the wrong way – but Remus and Virgil are the priority right now.

In the end, it takes an inordinate number of sugar-coated lies and uncomfortable truths that taste even sourer on his tongue than usual to convince everybody to go back to the house. The dark, cold house that should be _their_ house, technically and semantically speaking – but without Thomas just feels like a place that Janus is intruding in.

He gets Virgil settled on the couch with a blanket tightly wrapped around his shoulders. Patton turns on all of the lights, and double-checks the locks on the doors about half a million times, as manic and obsessive as if he’s trying to take Virgil’s job away from him. Logan walks in and out of the kitchen, frowning and muttering frantically under his breath while all of this is happening.

With all of this going on, it does end up taking a few minutes before everybody’s in the living room, clustered in the L-shaped bend of the couch. Facing each other like a tense family meeting is about to begin. There’s a horrible silence that seems to overwhelm everything and everyone, smothering them like darkness or fog.

Roman breaks it.

“Has anyone tried sinking out, yet?” he asks.

Everyone exchanges glances, and then there’s a brief pause wherein the six of them attempt to do just that. And it’s the strangest feeling, to make as if to do something that comes to them as naturally as breathing, and to just... not be able to do it. Now that Janus is actually thinking about it, he can’t for the life of him remember how sinking out or in is actually instigated. It’s as if the muscle that controls it has been nearly severed – taken away from him without having noticed until this moment.

He looks up, and guesses, from the expressions on everyone’s faces, that they’ve all had about as much luck as he has.

“This – this isn’t good,” Patton mutters, which may just be the understatement of the century.

“We need to call someone,” suggests Virgil numbly. “There’s got to be someone that can help.”

“Oh, and who do _you_ propose we dial up?” Janus says. It comes out more snappishly than he might have liked. Apologies would seem too insincere. He ploughs onwards. “Oh, of course – I forgot about that helpline phone number we’ve got _conveniently_ pinned to the fridge; the 24/7 ‘fairies stole the culmination of our collective beings, we’ll help you get them back any hour of the night’ hotline! Thank you _so_ much for pointing that out, Virgil. I never would have remembered otherwise!”

Another one of those dreadful silences, and then Virgil looks up at him. There’s no anger in his gaze, and he doesn’t look like he’s gearing up to respond to Janus’s sarcasm, which – honestly, it surprises Janus a little. He’s well aware that his reaction had been more than a bit abrasive and uncalled for.

“Are we saying it’s fairies, then?” Virgil asks. His voice is small.

“I... well.” Janus sighs. His hand goes up to fiddle with the brim of his hat, and he remembers that he’d lost it while following Thomas out of the house, nearly fifteen minutes ago. Had it only been fifteen minutes ago? “When you put it like that, it sounds ridiculous. Stupid. Implausible.” A breath. “I don’t know.”

“Fairies aren’t real,” Logan says, carefully and slowly. Less like he’s trying to argue, and more like he’s trying to convince himself, or recall some long-forgotten fact and commit it firmly to memory.

“Of course they aren’t,” agrees Janus. “Just like animators can’t turn living people into cartoons. Just like someone’s sense of morality can’t get up and eat spaghetti from the fridge all by themself. Just like our _fucking stove can’t talk to us._ ”

“None of that counts!” Roman objects. “None of that’s...”

“Real?” Janus says, and laughs with an edge of hysteria to it that he really doesn’t like but can’t seem to erase. “In case you hadn’t noticed, neither are we.”

Nobody seems to know what to say to that.

After a second, Patton gets up abruptly, and makes for the stairs. Everybody sits up just that little bit straighter, although nobody questions his departure, and Remus quietly begins to shred one of the sofa cushions into long, curling ribbons.

Patton returns in less than a minute. He has Thomas’s phone in one hand, and he plops himself down on the nearest chair, unlocking it and tap-tap-tapping away.

“What are you doing?” Virgil shifts towards Patton, moving to lean over his shoulder. His fingers are drumming out a frenetic, arrhythmic tempo on his legs.

“I’m calling Joan,” says Patton, who is scrolling through Thomas’s contact list with a scary combination of intensity and emptiness in his eyes. He glances up, and meets Janus’s gaze. “Even if it’s not... you know – someone needs to know that Thomas is missing. Maybe they can call the police for us.”

“But at one o’clock in the morning?” Virgil points out.

“I know,” says Patton. “I know, I _know,_ it’s super rude, but... they’ll understand. It’s an emergency. And even if they can’t help, not at all,” he adds, jabbing at Joan’s name and then at the dial button, “I want to hear their voice.”

Janus sighs, and curls his legs up to his chest. They’re all silent, simply waiting as the phone rings, and rings, and rings –

“ _Thomas, what the fuck,_ ” comes Joan’s tinny, bleary-sounding voice in a loud whisper from where the phone’s jammed against Patton’s ear. “ _Do you even know how early it is?_ ”

“Joan,” says Patton. “Oh my gosh, oh jeezy creezy – _Joan._ I know it’s super ridiculously early – or, I guess, late? – but this is kind of a really bad emergency and _honestly_ we didn’t know who else to call.”

There’s a pause, and then, tentatively, “ _...Thomas?_ ”

Remus is gesturing wildly and impatiently in his direction, so Patton switches the call to speakerphone, and puts it on the coffee table. “Not exactly?” he says. “Technically speaking, we’re all him. Except we might not be anymore, and – oh, this isn’t my department at all, I’m _sorry_ , I’m not making much sense.”

“ _Hang on. Roman?_ ” Joan says, still sounding half-awake. There’s the sound of rustling, and then – “ _Wait, no – Patton?_ ”

“Yes. Yes! That’s me, I’m Patton. Actually, we’re all here, but I guess I’m the only one on the phone right now... uh, guys?”

“Hi,” says Virgil half-heartedly, which sets off a chorus of equally half-hearted and immensely lackluster greetings from all around the room.

“ _Okay, so._ ” Joan sounds a bit more alert now, like they’re trying very hard to pay attention and understand what’s going on _._ “ _Patton, you’re calling me from... Thomas’s phone? Which makes sense, I guess, it’s not like you guys would be able to call out to the real world with yours, but – why? What’s the problem? Why can’t Thomas call me himself?_ ”

A pause. An intake of breath.

“Thomas is gone,” says Patton, his voice getting a bit smaller even as he says it. He shrinks in on himself, like the act of speaking it aloud is physically diminishing him somehow.

“ _What._ ” It’s flat and deadpan enough that it would be comedic under any other circumstances.

“There was – something happened. Thomas, he – he went kind of crazy in the kitchen, and then he tried to stab Logan, and – and he ran out into the woods? And we tried following him, and Virgil caught up to him but then he did something _bad_ and now he’s just gone and we’re all here in the house and we don’t know what to _do –_ ”

“ _Whoa, whoa – okay, Pat, come on, shh, it’s okay – you’re not making much sense right now. Can you put Logan on for me?”_

“Right,” says Patton, and wrings his hands a bit, apparently unsure of what to do with himself. “Um. Uh.”

Logan sits up a bit straighter, and scoots over so he’s closer to the phone. “I’m here,” he says. “What do you need to know?”

Logan’s explanation is concise enough, although also somewhat scattered and nervous in the way that only a Panicked Logan Explanation can be. It gets the job done. They seem to grasp the severity of the situation. And with the assurance that Joan’s coming over as quickly as they can, there’s not much that they can do except sit around and wait. Logan gets up about five minutes into the uncomfortable, all-encompassing silence that ensues, and heads for the kitchen purposefully. Janus hesitates for a moment – glancing around at the others – but ultimately does end up getting up as well, and following him.

He doesn’t know what he had expected Logan to be doing. Cleaning up the mess, maybe? Or at least attempting to clear it up a bit – but, no. Instead, he’s peering into the fridge with a slight frown.

Janus slinks over to stand behind him, and glances around Logan’s outstretched arm, braced on the fridge door. The fridge light appears to have stopped working at some point. He would have thought that it’d be empty, seeing as how the contents of it are very visibly scattered around the entirety of the kitchen but, in fact, there’s one item of food still remaining inside; the blackberry pie. Slightly burnt around the edges. A little lopsided. Missing two pieces. It’s sitting right in the middle of the uppermost shelf, perfectly intact and untouched,

“Ah,” says Janus.

“Indeed,” Logan replies. Janus sees that his hand, wrapped tightly around the fridge door handle, is trembling ever-so-slightly.

“...I don’t think we should eat that,” Janus says, very slowly.

Logan just shakes his head. He seems unable to tear his eyes away from the sight of the pie that’s just... sitting there. It’s a surprisingly threatening sight, for an inanimate edible object.

“You know,” he says. His voice is not as strong as usual – not nearly as certain as it should be. “I have no idea what to make of _any_ of this.”

“The facts are these,” says Janus. He touches Logan’s back, very lightly – hoping it’ll be able to ground him in some way. He might enjoy the spectacle on any other occasion, but right now, the sight of the very personification of logic falling to pieces before him is wholly unsettling in almost every respect. “Thomas went into what was, in retrospect, an unsettlingly perfect clearing, and took berries from it. He ate those berries. He was the only one of us to do so. And later that night, he – ” Janus gestures expansively at the room around him. “ – well, all of this. It might not have even _been_ him, come to think of it. None of us could reach him; he didn’t seem to even be _connected_ to us. And when he went back outside, the forest claimed him.”

“ _‘Claimed him_ ’,” murmurs Logan. “An interesting way of putting it.”

“We all saw what happened,” Janus says, removing his hand from Logan’s back to clasp it tightly with one of his own, behind his back. “As convincing as your _‘fairies don’t exist_ ’ mantra is, it’s hard to deny that the sight of the _trees literally bending to drag him into the darkness_ was anything close to natural.”

“It doesn’t make sense,” Logan groans, dragging a hand through his already thoroughly dishevelled hair. “ _None_ of this does. I don’t – _stop._ ” He whirls around to face Janus, eyes narrowed. “Why are _you_ ‘presenting the facts’? That is the exact _opposite_ of your job. What are you up to?”

Janus can’t quite help the sudden jump of his heart at the insinuation that he’s doing something wrong. Logan is stressed and angry and scared just like the rest of them, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t sting. “I am ‘ _presenting the facts’_ because they are what _you_ are currently denying,” he says, as calmly as he can manage. “And because it serves me no purpose whatsoever to assist you in denying them. I want Thomas back as much as any of you. _Just_ as much as any of you. Without him, we are incomplete, and...” His hands tighten on each other, behind his back. “And I have my doubts that we’ll exist for very long without him.”

Logan freezes. His look of suspicion and fear is replaced by... Well, just fear, actually. And more than a little trepidation. “Your hypothesis is that – since Thomas has left without us, we will all cease to exist? Do you have any evidence for that?”

“It’s just a theory. Based on a... a feeling.” He sighs. “Based on my sudden recollection of a particular plot point from _Back To The Future,_ which is, of course, a terrible movie with a dreadful soundtrack that nobody should watch, ever.”

“It is rather good,” Logan agrees, after a moment. “Apart from the rather sketchy time travel mechanics, that is. There’s a lot to unpack there, really – wait. Are you implying that the only reason we’re all still here is that... Thomas’s absence simply has yet to catch up to the rest of us yet?”

“For all we know, he could be dead already,” Janus says. Logan visibly flinches. “It’s a very possible truth that you’re denying, don’t give me that look – and in that case, nonexistence could be just around the corner for all of us, and we wouldn’t even know it.”

“Is there any particular reason you’re attempting to scare me like this?” Logan hisses, now lowering his voice. “Even if that _is_ the truth, there’s absolutely nothing we can do about it.”

Janus looks at him for a very long moment, and then averts his gaze, hating himself a tiny bit. If he’s going to be honest with himself – which doesn’t happen a lot, mind you – he doesn’t even _know_ why he had said all that. Habit? An attempt to distract himself from the awful reality of the situation? Does he just really like winding Logan up?

“Never mind,” he says. “I... don’t think I’ll mention this to the others.”

“That is probably for the best,” says Logan.

He looks at Janus for another long second, and then his gaze drifts over to the kitchen table, where the large pot full of green slime is sitting. It’s no longer bubbling, which doesn’t serve to make it any less disgusting.

Janus’s gaze travels over in that direction too. He wrinkles his nose slightly at the acrid, pungent smell. Meat that’s beginning to rot, spoiled milk, a million other ingredients that he really very much does want to speculate on right now. It’s only gotten worse since it’s been sitting there, unattended. They should really open a window. “What do you suppose he was trying to achieve?”

Logan just shakes his head. “I don’t know,” he says, his face twisting slightly as he says it, as if in physical pain. “If he... if that _wasn’t_ Thomas, then it could be anything. If it was... I’m really not sure. I’m not sure a psychotic break isn’t entirely off the table at this point.”

Janus sighs, and holds one gloved hand delicately over his nose as he goes up to inspect the pot more closely. He leans in, and while doing so, sees several emptied-out containers of various shapes and sizes on the other side of the table. He picks one up – a large plastic bottle of rock salt which he’s _sure_ had been full the last time he’d seen it. Completely empty. Next to it, a container that should have been full to the brim with powdered nutmeg – similarly empty.

He takes a step back, rather hurriedly. “The contents of that pot,” he says, “are something that I also think we shouldn’t be eating. And we should all probably start praying very hard that Thomas didn’t eat any of it, either.”

“Agreed, obviously,” says Logan, and hurries forward to take Janus’s previous position over the noxious brew, brow furrowed. He swipes a finger through the residue at the brim of the pot, and examines it for a second or two. “This is charcoal. Where did he get charcoal?”

Janus finds another empty container of salt resting on the countertop, and feels something in his chest tighten unpleasantly.

“And...” Logan is now looking through the rest of the discarded boxes and containers, scanning the kitchen as he holds them up. “He ripped open these tea bags? Did he put those in there too?”

“It looks like it. Not to mention the curry powder, the celery, half a bottle of apple cider vinegar...” says Janus, and then freezes as he sees a container on the ground. One that absolutely does not belong in the kitchen under any circumstances.

He snatches it up and looks inside. The lid’s been unscrewed and discarded already. Empty. Scraped clean.

“ _Fuck._ Please tell me he didn’t put _shoe polish_ into that.”

“Are you asking me to lie to you?” Logan says without a hint of amusement.

He picks up an empty thermos from where it’s been discarded on the side counter, before dipping it carefully into the liquid and filling it up to the brim. He caps it, and carries it to the sink to wash off the gunk on the outside.

“We might need a sample,” he explains, to a questioning tilt of the head from Janus. “In case Thomas returns, and...”

“Bring the snake that bit you along to the hospital,” Janus says, nodding. “Logical.”

“I should very much hope so – ” Logan puts the container in the fridge, next to the pie, and shuts the door. “ – because I really don’t know what else I _can_ do.”

It’s at this point that the doorbell rings, and the whole house seems to go silent for a brief moment. The quiet discussion that could previously be heard from the living room falls to nothing. Logan and Janus exchange a glance.

The frantic sound of an out-of-control Remus sprinting to the front door, slamming into walls and various pieces of furniture on his way, is all too audible and entirely too distinctive.

“Oh dear,” mutters Janus, instinctively reaching out one of his more intangible hands into the void – to grab him, perhaps? Drag him back from injuring himself or breaking anything? – but nothing happens. Just like the ability to sink out and away, it’s missing. He hisses angrily to himself, and clenches his fists momentarily, before relaxing them. He doesn’t like this, not in the least, but there’s no time for this.

Logan spares him a split-second worried glance, but Janus shakes his head. Together, they hurry out of the wrecked kitchen and towards the front door.

It’s open, and it’s still just as windy and miserable outside as it had been during their brief outdoors jaunt earlier. A tired, slightly rumpled-looking Joan is standing on the front step. They’re wearing a loose t-shirt and flannel pants, having apparently rushed directly over without bothering to get properly dressed. And Remus is right up in their face, talking at lightning speed – practically _ranting_ in his haste to explain every bit of the situation to them in excruciating, horrifying detail.

Joan is trying their best to placate him and get him to slow down a bit, but it’s next to no use. Remus is spiralling, _dramatically._ The way that he’s shuddering and twitching every few seconds is a testament to that. Remus is frequently out of control and a living disaster in equal measure, but this isn’t like that. Usually he’s fully aware of both of those things and completely owns it.

Janus would say that Remus looks like he’s on the verge of just _screaming_ ; non-stop and at the top of his lungs, with no regard for anybody’s comfort around him, but he had already done that in the back yard for nearly fifteen minutes before Patton managed to calm him down enough to get him inside. Thomas’s neighbours are probably already making plans to move away and never come back at this very moment.

Roman arrives at the front door as well, and gently tugs Remus away by the elbow. “Come on, Re, let’s – let’s go talk to Patton,” he says, and glances over to Joan with a wave of welcome that’s far less excessively dramatic than it usually is. “Greetings, friend Joan,” he says, managing a thin smile. “Come on in.”

“Hi,” says Joan, looking faintly relieved at the reprieve. They hurry inside, tugging off their beanie and coat. Janus doesn’t hesitate to firmly shut and lock the door behind them, as securely as he can.

They clear their throat, glancing around awkwardly. They’re acting like they’ve never been in the house before. Janus supposes that it must be strange to be in your friend’s house at an ungodly hour of the morning, with your friend – as you know him, anyway – not being physically present. “So, should we-?”

Janus nods. “Let’s go sit down. We’ll catch you up.”

They migrate inwards. As they approach, Virgil and Patton both look up at Joan and gain identical expressions of absolute relief.

They’re all just as fond of Thomas’s friends as Thomas himself is. The affection bleeds through them like watercolors, staining the way in which they see the world in bright, vivid hope. Some of them are just more visual in showing it. For example, all Janus really wants to do right now is cling to Joan and never let go – but he would never in a million years even entertain the merest thought of actually _doing_ it. Affection? For other people? _Ugh._

Patton has no such inhibitions. Joan sits down on the couch, across from him and Virgil, and he launches himself across, practically throwing himself right at Joan as he barrels into an enthusiastic, somewhat desperate hug. They let out a soft _oof,_ then wrap their arms around him, kind of just rolling with it. “Hey, Pat.”

“Sorry,” he mutters, partially muffled by the cushions that his face is kind of sideways-squished into. “It’s been... _ugh._ Lemme just stay here for a minute or two?”

“Don’t be sorry,” Joan replies instantly, leaning into the hug and squeezing him. They still look half-asleep, and also completely out of their mind with worry and confusion. “You guys are Thomas, Thomas is my friend – you’re my friends, too. And it sounds like you’ve been having a hell of a rough night. Virgil, do you-?”

Virgil hunches into himself, picking at his fingernails, and stares at Joan for a long, long second, before nodding. He gets up and goes over to sit on their other side, before just sort of falling over onto them in a decidedly Thomas-at-the-end-of-a-long-filming-session-esque move. Joan pats his shoulder, and then looks up at the rest of them, now congregating on the unoccupied couch space.

“So,” they say. “What’s going on?”

Filling Joan in on the situation takes nearly fifteen minutes – due in no small part to the fact that they keep talking over and interrupting each other’s trains of thought, and there’s really nobody who’s been designated as the primary speaker. Usually Thomas would be the one directing the flow of conversation and drawing their trains of thought together in a similar vein, but right now, he’s not here. So it’s less like a single, cohesive, coherent train, and more like a whole lot of destructive multi-track drifting.

When they’re done, Joan nods their head, and then shakes it, and then lets out a long string of filthy curses.

“Same,” agrees Remus unhappily.

“What do we do?” Patton says.

“We... should call the police,” says Joan uncertainly. “That’s what you’re supposed to do for missing persons cases. We – I should be calling them. Right now.”

There’s a moment of silence.

“I can’t help but notice that you’re not, in fact, doing that,” Janus points out, raising an eyebrow.

Joan groans and rubs at their eyes with a sleeve. “Yeah, see – the thing is, the police are going to want to know a whole bunch of things. Like how I knew he was even missing in the first place, why I bothered to come over at two in the morning, and... guys, if they come over right now, they’re almost definitely going to want to search the house.”

“So?” says Patton blankly. “That’s probably a good thing, right? They can maybe figure out where he went. If it wasn’t the forest, I mean.”

“The house, that you guys live in,” Joan says. They sound a bit more testy than usual – a lot less patient and laid-back. “That you’re currently standing in. All of you – the people who happen to be more-or-less perfect clones of the guy who’s missing. You know, Thomas Sanders?”

“We can leave the house,” Logan says, just as Virgil lifts his head and says, “wait, is that even a problem?”

“Why wouldn’t it be a problem?” Joan asks, turning to look at Virgil, who’s pushing himself away from their side so he can sit up properly. “There are going to be a _lot_ of questions about – god. Fuck, I don’t even know. Who you _are_. What you’re doing – how you even exist! I mean, look at him!” They point at Janus, who waves back, somewhat sardonically. “Deceit – ah, Janus, sorry – is literally half-snake. He has _scales_ on his _face._ ”

Janus runs a hand down the snakewise side of his face absently.

And freezes.

“No, I don’t,” he says, cutting off whatever Virgil’s about to say in response.

“ _Really?”_ says Roman, looking wholly unimpressed. “Is this _honestly_ the time for your arbitrary mendacious flights of fancy? We’ve got a situation here, Mony Lie-Thon!”

“No,” says Janus, and pulls a finger along the slit that runs up the side of his face – or at least, where the slit usually would be. “This isn’t a lie. I’m not – my face. It’s normal. I think...” He swipes along his cheek again. It’s _smooth_. Smooth and flat and not bumpy in the least. He hates the sensation immediately. “...I think this is... makeup?”

Another moment of silence.

“That. Is.” Logan takes a swift gasp of a breath in. “ _Concerning._ But not something we can really deal with right now. Apologies, Janus.”

Janus nods. His fingers trace a line down from his temple to his chin. The chalky residue of what he assumes to be concealer catches on his fingers. “I understand. Virgil – continue?”

Virgil is now casting concerned, borderline terrified glances in Janus’s direction. His fingers are going up to rub at the dark circles under his eyes (although those are makeup _already;_ Janus doesn’t know what he’s trying to achieve with that). “I – fuck, what was I going to say? – right. I was _going_ to say, do we have any guarantee that anyone besides Joan is actually going to be able to see us?”

“We don’t,” says Logan, and then stiffens – “and we _shouldn’t._ This shouldn’t even be something that we’re debating right now.”

“I... don’t follow,” Joan admits.

“We are meant to be _purely theoretical_ ,” Logan says sharply. He sounds faintly angry – not really at Joan, not really at the others or himself, just at... everything. “We are not meant to be analysed or categorized, Joan. We are meant to just _be._ Our actions and existence are impossible by definition, and we exist in a realm of perpetual plausible deniability. If we affect or accomplish anything that has repercussions in the real world, it _must_ be something that Thomas himself is able to do himself without our presence being required. We are Schrodinger’s entities brought to fruition; a trick of his overactive imagination that have gained life and complexity that astounds even me. And we should not be able to exist without him, even for the faintest sliver of a second.”

“But here you are,” says Joan slowly.

“Here we are,” Logan agrees, and sinks back into the cushions of the sofa with a soft sigh. “For now, at least.”

Virgil buries his hands deep in the fabric of his hoodie. “There’s a bit of precedent for this,” he offers dully. “I mean, we can pass through walls and floors. People don’t even _look_ at us when we’re hanging out with Thomas in public. Maybe it’ll be the same here?”

“Uh, I’m not so sure about that,” says Patton, raising a tentative hand into the air. “I mean, you’re absolutely right about that, Virge, and in any _other_ situation I would absolutely one-hundred-percent agree with you, _but,_ um – we can’t. Pass through anything right now, I mean.”

“You can’t?” Joan says.

“We can’t sink out, or summon anything,” Logan says. “And I’ve been assuming it’s because there’s currently nowhere to sink out _to._ Wherever Thomas is, he’s beyond our reach.”

“Whatever this is, it may also be why we’re losing our... for lack of a better term, ‘special abilities’,” Janus adds. “I can’t summon extra arms. My inhuman qualities are diminishing and being replaced by – placeholders, to use another inadequate term. And I’d pay good money to bet that it’s the same for the rest of you.”

“No, you wouldn’t. You don’t even have any money,” says Roman.

Virgil nods. “My spooky voice isn’t working,” he says. “I thought it was just stress, but it should work _better_ under stress.”

Joan frowns. “Your spooky-? Oh, right. Tempest Tongue. Jeez, that can’t be good.”

From the other side of the couch, Remus lets out a growl low in his throat, and his head snaps up abruptly. “What the fuck is wrong with all of you?” he bites out abruptly, making Virgil jump.

Logan takes a deep breath in. “Remus,” he says.

Remus _glowers._ He rockets to his feet, as if propelled upright by a furious burst of air or a tightly-wound spring. “Seriously, _what! Is! Wrong! With! You!?_ Thomas is gone! Thomas could be _dead_ in the _ground_ with _worms_ burrowing all the way through his putrid rotten twitching corpse and you’re all talking about fucking _metaphysics!_ ”

Roman’s holding his brother’s arm – not forcibly, he’s not actually tugging him back or restraining him properly or anything. It looks more like he’s just trying to reassure him that he’s still there.

“Well, what do you want us to do?” Patton exclaims. “It’s not like we-! Remus, we _can’t_ do anything!”

“We should be going out into the forest,” Remus growls, “and fucking _looking_ for him.”

“Remus,” says Logan again – perfectly reasonably, but with just the slightest hint of a tremor echoing underneath it – and the two of them lock eyes fiercely for a second or two. It’s unclear exactly what’s being communicated through this, but after a moment or two, Remus huffs and allows Roman to pull him back to the couch without another word.

“Fuck,” says Joan. “ _Fuck._ Okay, I’m... _okay –_ how about this. Doing anything tonight would be stupid; really stupid. So I’m going to go back home until tomorrow morning, which is...” They scramble for their phone.

“Four, five hours,” Virgil contributes, glancing up at the clock.

“Yeah,” they say. “You guys can come over too, stay the night – shit, do you even need to sleep?” They don’t pause to let anyone answer the question, ploughing onwards. “Then I’ll come back, and I’ll call the police, and they can do their thing, and – then you guys can come back. And we can work something out.”

“But _what?_ ” Remus snaps, fingers digging into the fabric of the sofa.

“I don’t know!” Joan exclaims, tugging at their hair in what Janus notices is pretty much the exact same motion, although he suspects that neither of them have noted. “Jesus, Remus, I have no clue what to do. Oh, here we go, here’s a thought – let’s pull up WikiHow; how to rescue your friend from a murder forest, ten steps, with pictures!”

“Getting back to your house is a good start,” Janus interrupts – calmly, reasonably. “So let’s do that. There’s not much we can do here, anyway.”

“The kitchen.” Virgil sits bolt upright. “What do we do about the kitchen?”

A pause, and then Logan says, with feeling, “ _Shit._ ”

“Hey, mind your fucking language!” Patton snaps.

“Should we even bother cleaning it up?” Virgil asks, fingers worrying at the hem of his hoodie. “I mean, if the police are coming, they’ll probably check it out, but it’s such a mess and it might throw them off. What if they think Thomas just had some sort of _fit,_ we should probably do something – but it’s _everywhere,_ it’ll take forever –”

Joan squeezes Virgil’s shoulder. “Hey, come on – it’s going to be okay.”

“They’re right,” says Janus. The lie tastes like nothing in his mouth. There’s no tug towards it. Lying is easy and habitual but no longer a faint compulsion, and he doesn’t know how to feel about that. “I’m sure it won’t do any harm if they see the current state of the kitchen. It’s not as if it could _hurt_ them. But we may want to take the pie with us, just in case.”

As he speaks, he also becomes aware of the fact that his tongue is just that – a tongue. No forked end, nothing special about in the least, and he tries not to let his panic show on his face.

“The pie?” Roman asks, brow furrowing. “What on earth would we want with the pie-?”

“I’ll go get it,” Logan says, standing up. “That and the sample.”

“That’s obstructing a police investigation,” Patton objects.

“What they don’t know won’t hurt them,” Janus says.

Joan lets out a little _hm_ and gives him a look that makes it pretty clear that they can see right through him, or most of the way through him. He just blinks back at them, and wonders if his left eye is as brown as everyone else’s, now.

They all cram into Joan’s tiny car and set off back to their house. It’s a tight fit, and they end up with Remus sitting in the front seat (for the group’s collective safety) while everyone else crams uncomfortably into the back seat.

It’s that weird, liminal time of the morning when they arrive. It’s dark enough outside but there’s scattered bird calls echoing outside, and the sky is a dusky dim shade of something that’s extremely hard to place. Joan shows them the guest room, pulls out two spare mattresses, and asks them if they can sort themselves out for the night. Upon getting vague noises of assent from mostly everyone, they wish everyone an exhausted-sounding ‘goodnight... or, good morning, I guess’ – and stumble back to bed for a couple hour’s worth of sleep.

Only some of them end up sleeping. Roman and Patton crash almost immediately, both electing to share a mattress. Logan takes the other, muttering something vague and unconvincing-sounding about healthy sleeping habits, and Virgil curls up next to him – leaving Janus to take the actual bed. Remus’s sleeping arrangements aren’t a problem, because it’s very, very obvious that Remus has no intention whatsoever of actually sleeping. He just... paces. Silent, angry pacing that would probably drive literal deep furrows in the carpet if they were existing on a more conceptual level right now.

When Janus asks him quietly to stop, he does. He comes to sit on the bed next to where Janus is lying, contorting himself into a painfully small ball of fury and tension, and he stays there. He’s not vibrating, exactly, but it almost seems as if he should be with the amount of angry energy he appears to be containing within himself.

Janus looks over, and sees that Logan’s eyes are wide open. He’s staring at the ceiling very intently, as if all the answers to every one of his problems are inscribed there. He has a feeling that if he went to check on Virgil, who’s not within his range of vision right now, he’d be exactly the same. He breathes out, rolls over, and shuts his eyes against the darkness.

He barely gets even ten total minutes of sleep that night.

Morning comes. Joan taps on the door to let everyone know they’re heading over to Thomas’s to let the police know about his disappearance, and then they’re gone, leaving their party of six to awkwardly convene in the kitchen and figure out if they need to eat or not. (They don’t seem to need to, and also don’t particularly feel like doing so, anyway.)

Talyn makes an appearance for some breakfast of their own, and offers some worried words and pats on the shoulders in response to being told about the entire situation, but it seems as if their health is on another downwards dip, and they don’t stick around all that long – gathering up their laptop and heading back in the direction of the main bedroom.

“I won’t be very good company, I don’t think,” they say. “But tell me the moment there’s any news. _Please._ ”

“We will,” says Roman.

Joan returns at one in the afternoon, looking absolutely exhausted. Apparently the police had arrived almost immediately and not let them go for several hours, but on the plus side, they had released the house as a crime scene into Joan’s care.

“They’re notifying his family,” reports Joan, “but they all live too far away for any of them to look after the place, and it’s not like he has any pets or plants to look after – so. You guys can probably head back there if you want; I can drive you. If you want to stick around in a place you’re more familiar with while we all – ” They make the vaguest of gestures with their hands. “ – you know. Try to sort this out.”

“If it’s not too much trouble,” Logan replies, and then, “thank you, Joan. Thank you for all of this.”

Joan just sighs. “It really is the least I can do,” they say.

*

So that’s how the six of them end up back at Thomas’s… no, at _their_ house. They’re clustered around the dining room table, frantically researching. For the first couple of hours alone, it had been tense and uncomfortable, none of them entirely sure if someone would come knocking on the doors, demanding to know why they were there, but at some point, that paranoia had died down into markedly less tense alertness.

The research had been Logan’s idea, because of course it had. And not a terrible idea, either. With a lack of anything better to do, they’re trying to get a better hold on the background and legends behind the whole ‘fairy kidnap’ theory – which, as ridiculous as it sounds, is pretty much their only lead at this point.

Logan’s commandeered Thomas’s phone, and Patton and Remus are shoulder-to-shoulder, sharing his laptop. And Virgil’s currently crouching on a backwards-facing chair, biting his lip and shaking his hands anxiously every so often as he attempts to recount to Janus the exact details of what had happened with Thomas at the forest’s edge.

“He said something weird,” Virgil is saying, “well, I mean, _everything_ he said was fucking weird, it was like he was possessed or something, but it was almost like he was trying to recite something. Something about growing and arms and, adders, I think?”

Janus dutifully notes it down. Fucking weird possession, growing and arms and snakes. (Oh, hey – nice, snakes.) It means nothing, but the act of committing it to paper seems to be somewhat reassuring to Virgil.

“Wait,” says Roman, looking up from the assorted volumes of fairy tales he’s paging through on the other side of the table. “You said he was reciting something. A poem?”

Virgil growls a bit, rumbling up from the back of his throat. “How should I-? Sure, a poem, why not? I can’t remember. I was pretty out of it by then, in case you can’t remember!”

“ _They will change me in your arms – into a deadly adder_ ,” Roman announces – more like sings, actually, holding a finger up in the air, as if to pause all other conversation in the room, “ _but hold me fast and fear me not – I am the baby's father!_ ”

There’s a moment of silence.

“That’s... _nice,_ Roman,” says Patton slowly. “But I don’t see what that has to do with any of this.”

But Virgil is nodding. “That’s... not it exactly, but close enough, I think. Yeah. That’s what he was saying. What _is_ it?”

“Ah! Quite simple, really. You see...” Roman pages frantically through one book, and then another, and then a third, and then he throws it down, shaking his head. “Blast. I was _trying_ to do a dramatic reveal, but none of these books have the tale in question.” He clears his throat. “What I was going to say: it sounds like Tam Lin.”

“Tam _what now,_ ” goes Patton, but Logan is clearing his throat and adjusting his glasses.

“Tam Lin,” he says – briskly, eagerly. “The classic tale of a determined young woman who rescues her lover from the Queen of the Fairies. It varies in form and style – it must have been told and retold hundreds upon hundreds of times since its genesis – but some general strands tend to remain through all the versions.”

Roman nods along to this. “Right, exactly. Tam Lin is cursed by the Queen to turn into all sorts of dreadful, nasty beasts, and the only way Janet can rescue her lover is by holding onto him and not letting him go.”

Virgil’s knuckles go white over the edge of the chair. “Shit. _Shit._ I let go of him. He told me not to, and I did anyway. Are you saying I-?”

Janus reaches out and presses a hand to Virgil’s shoulder; pushing firmly, grounding him. “Shh,” he says, although it doesn’t have much effect, as powerless as he is right now. “Nobody’s saying anything about what you did or didn’t do. And we don’t blame you for it either.”

Virgil relaxes a tiny bit, and doesn’t question the veracity of this – probably a good thing, because Janus isn’t all that sure how true it is, himself. “Why would Thomas try to tell me the words of an old folk song?”

“Why would he make the world’s deadliest smoothie at ass-o-clock in the morning and chug it down for shits and giggles?” Remus says with a hint of maniac fervor to it. “Because he lost his entire mind! Went completely off the deep end! Flipped like a spring-loaded pancake and _ran away into the fucking forest!_ ”

“Or maybe,” says Roman pointedly, “ _maybe_ he was trying to tell us something.”

“Something like _I shouldn’t have let go of him,_ ” Virgil says, clearly about to start spiralling, which is _definitely_ something they need right now.

“Or where to find him,” blurts Janus, because it’s the first thing that comes to mind, and when everyone stops and stares at him, he shrugs. “What? I know the story, too. Tam Lin lives in Carterhaugh Wood. He’s bound there because the Queen wills it. It could be a clue.”

“Right. Just one problem with that. Carterhaugh is in Scotland,” says Roman. “We live in _Florida._ ”

“Wait. Stop. Hold on.” Patton holds up a hand in the air, frowning. “We’re not seriously saying that Thomas was kidnapped by the Fairy Queen. Are we?”

Logan almost shrugs, but then just ends up shaking his head. “All we’re saying right now is that Thomas certainly seemed to want to let us know that Tam Lin was important somehow. The excerpt from the ballad itself, and all that talk about ‘not letting go’...”

“Folk ballads,” Virgil says. “Right. Cool. Did anybody else find anything?”

“I’ve been attempting to ascertain likely routes that Thomas may have taken.” Logan indicates the phone he’s holding. On it, Google Maps is up and displaying various on-foot routes. “The hope being that we will be able to track him somehow in the morning.”

“And...?” Patton sounds cautiously hopeful, but Logan shakes his head.

“No. Nothing that makes sense, not yet. And you?”

“Well – ” Patton begins.

“Tried to figure out what the fuck was up with that whole ‘wildly twisting forest thing’,” Remus says, jabbing a finger perhaps a little too violently at the computer screen. “You know, shared hallucinations, Reddit conspiracy theories, previous experiences, that kind of thing. Tried, failed. We keep getting porn sites and Lovecraft.”

“The... um, _other_ sites were probably because of the way that you were phrasing the searches,” Patton contributes. “I don’t think Google likes it when you swear that much. No idea about the other thing, though.”

“Lovecraft? _H.P._ Lovecraft?” Logan asks, brow furrowed.

“Is there any other one?” Virgil points out.

“Yeah, I... _really_ don’t like that guy,” Patton mutters. “Do you know what he named his cat?”

“None of us want to think about the truly horrific name that Sir Racist McRacismface bestowed his unfortunate feline companion,” Roman says, face twisting. “Not now, not ever.”

“Well, Lovecraft definitely has nothing to do with this,” Janus surmises with a sigh. “So we might as well just go back to the folk songs and fairy tales.” Bitterness seeps into his voice, unbidden. “For all the good it’ll do us.”

Almost at the exact moment that he says it, there’s a noise from outside. Faint, like something scratching up against the window. Janus tenses up. He can feel Virgil tensing up as well under his hand.

Logan, who is currently talking, doesn’t seem to notice. “In that case, some more research into the myths and variations on it – or any of the Child Ballads, really – might be prudent. If we can just get – ”

“Logan,” says Janus, but the sound of something heavy colliding with the door – a dull, angry _thump_ – is loud enough that everyone in the room can hear it. Janus feels a sharp electric thrum of terror course through him.

“Oh god,” whispers Virgil into the ensuing silence. “We’re being robbed.”

“Or,” says Patton with a note of forced cheer in his voice – but nonetheless matching Virgil’s volume – “maybe a package just got delivered. It could be this week’s HelloFresh order. Didn’t we get the One-Pan Creamy Chicken Gnocchi and the American Beef Enchiladas with tomato salsa and sour cream? It could be that. That sounded like a food-being-dropped-off noise.”

“Is this _really_ the time for product placement?” Janus says incredulously.

“Well, we _do_ have to keep the bills paid _somehow_ ,” Logan points out.

More silence. Janus strains to listen, but can only hear wind and crickets outside. Nothing new from outside.

“Maybe it’s nothing,” says Roman hopefully.

Another thump that definitely doesn’t sound like ‘nothing’. Quieter this time, like someone throwing something fairly lightweight against the door. And then another, and another, and then silence.

“Well,” says Roman. “That isn’t good, probably.”

Remus bounds to his feet and snatches up an entire full-sized lamp, ripping the cord out from its socket, slings it over one shoulder, and goes stalking towards the front door with purpose, ignoring everyone else’s instant, panicked objections.

“If there’s any fairies out there,” he yells at the top of his lungs, “ _I’m going to beat their sparkly asses into equally sparkly piles of gore!_ ”

The five of them remaining seem to be frozen in place at the table. Glances are exchanged – the sorts of glances that say _oh god this can’t end well we should probably stop him shouldn’t we –_ but also they aren’t doing anything which just makes them a bunch of terrified hypocrites. _Thump-thump-thump-thump_ goes the sound of Remus pounding down the hallway. The sound of the locks being disengaged at a downright frenetic pace. The _slam_ of the door being thrown open.

Silence.

Everyone holds their breath.

_“Oh shit!”_ comes the distant scream.

Janus is on his feet and running to the door too, now. He doesn’t like running, he’s realized. It’s not as if he had much need for doing it when he had been strictly confined to the realm of Thomas’s mind. Why run when you can visualize yourself somewhere and be there immediately, after all? But today marks the second day in a row he’s had to sprint at full speed through the house and to the front door to stop something really terrible from occurring. God, does he hate his job.

The door is open. Remus is kneeling down in the frame, the lamp discarded to one side – the bulb is broken, and is definitely going to require some cleaning-up later.

What he’s got halfway in his lap is most definitely not their new HelloFresh food shipment.

“Is that-?” Janus says, and takes a step closer so he can look over Remus’s shoulder properly and see.

And there – hair knotted and tangled, wearing strange clothes and smelling strongly of flowers and with dirt and mud stained across basically every square inch of his skin – is a very pale-looking, _very_ unconscious –

“ _Thomas?!_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The version of Tam Lin that Roman is talking about (and that Thomas recited earlier) is the Tricky Pixie version, which is extremely sexy and fun. Go google it or check out [this recording!](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KybJQyv91So)


	4. roman (i)

Thomas is _here._ Thomas is alive and Thomas is breathing and Thomas is really super unconscious and that just won’t do, won’t it? Thomas isn’t _supposed_ to be this still and unmoving. He should be awake and fabulous, singing riffs and creating new stories and situations, messing around with his friends and conducting lively debates with his Sides. But he’s not doing any of these things. He’s just lying there on the couch, in the sweat pants and loose t-shirt that they’d managed to wrangle him into.

Roman doesn’t know what to _do._ It’s the worst kind of writer’s block. He knows there’s probably something he should be doing, but he can’t for the life of him work out what in the gosh dang fucking hell-ity heck it’s meant to _be._ He’s managed to get most of the mud off Thomas’s face and skin and hair with liberal sponging and a bucket of water and Patton’s fussy assistance, but the knots in his hair refuse to come out, no matter how hard the two of them try. 

And also. Thomas won’t wake up. That’s pretty important. They should be doing something about that. They’re _trying_ to do something about that. Virgil’s tried doing his scariest ‘wake up, you’ve forgotten about that glass of the water dangerously close to the edge of the counter’ voice (in Roman’s professional opinion, not at all that scary) – to no avail. Remus had gone full Weirdo Gremlin Creature Mode, clambering all over Thomas and yelling at him and shaking him and licking his ears a bit too enthusiastically – still nothing. Patton had suggested smelling salts, and then admitted that he had no idea what smelling salts actually were, just that he had read a bunch of books or something referring to then, and when Logan had explained them for real, had agreed that the chances of finding smelling salts anytime soon was really super low so yeah, maybe not.

Janus isn’t helping, because of course he isn’t. He’s just sitting at the table, frown getting increasingly deep, examining the clothes that Thomas had shown up in. Roman can’t really blame him. They’re pretty strange and wonderful clothes. It’s a sort of dress or a tunic, maybe – smooth green material worn ragged and dirty, maybe silk or that smooth soft shiny material that all theatres use for fancy costumes. It looks like it would be gorgeous if it weren’t in the state it’s in currently.

Also – there’s a lot of alsos right now, but _this is a stressful situation, okay?_ – they _still_ can’t sink out. Or feel Thomas in any sense but physical. Or do _anything._ Roman misses his sword quite desperately.

“His pulse is fine,” concludes Logan, looking up. He’s sitting next to Thomas on the couch, running through what he says is all the basic first-aid he knows. “It’s... more than fine, actually. It’s a normal resting pulse rate, almost as if he’s awake and aware.”

“But he’s not,” says Roman. “He’s just lying there like a... like a boring vegetable. A very handsome and humanoid vegetable, but still a boring one. Zucchini, maybe.”

“Should we call Joan?” Patton asks. “Or the police. Or _someone._ I mean, Thomas is here. That’s a good thing, right? We should call off the whole missing persons thing. Everything’s going to be okay now! He’s here and he’s back!”

“But is he _really?_ ” Virgil asks, eyes narrowed.

Patton recoils. “You – Virge, can you – uh, can you not do the whole paranoia thing right now, it’s really not – of course it’s him. I mean, look at him!”

They all look at Thomas. He isn’t moving – none of his usual sleep twitches or scattered sentences. Silent as the grave; pale faced, damp hair plastered across his forehead. He really honestly could be dead. Roman fights the urge to go check for a pulse himself – mainly because he doesn’t know where he should be checking. Medicine really isn’t his strong suit.

“We’ve all tried sinking out again, yeah?” Virgil says, to a chorus of reluctant nods. “And, there’s nothing. If this was _actually_ Thomas, we’d be able to feel him. Feel something. Anything! But there’s just nothing! This is... this is a Thomas-shaped shell that the fairies fucking dumped on our doorstep.”

Roman thinks it’s kind of interesting how they’ve all just accepted that fairies are behind this all. Which is obviously the case, and it was stupid that they had been denying it in the first place. Either that, or everyone’s just using fairies as a convenient place to lay the blame for everything that’s going wrong, which – fair, actually.

“We should be calling the hospital _,_ ” Logan says. “He’s not waking up; his pupils aren’t responding and they are _highly_ dilated. He’s not responding to pain stimuli. This is essentially a coma.”

Patton’s shriek of, “A _coma?!_ ” is only barely louder than Remus’s angry, bewildered, “Okay, how are we not all dead yet?”

“Not to derail this fascinating discussion or anything,” interrupts Janus, voice perfectly calm and even, “but I think we might want to all have a look at this.”

_This_ turns out to be a string of slightly crumpled flowers that Janus holds up in one gloved hand – huh, he hadn’t been wearing gloves while they’d been researching, he must have put them back on at some point – but never mind that; the _flowers._ What’s up with the flowers? They’re vibrantly colored, strung together inexpertly into a loop. Red merging into orange into yellow into –

“Hold on,” says Roman. “Hang on just one second. Isn’t that Thomas’s flower crown? Where did you get that – didn’t we leave it in the forest?”

“We did,” Logan confirms. “Was Thomas carrying that?”

Janus just nods, and tosses the rest of the tattered green tunic to the table. “Stuffed in the pockets. There’s nothing else there, though, I checked.”

“Ooh,” coos Patton. “That dress has pockets?”

“He must have gone back to the clearing,” says Virgil, and his eyes go wide. “Oh my god, that’s like – that’s a half hour drive from here. Logan, how long would it take to walk that?”

“Six hours, I think,” Logan says, and then his brain catches up to his mouth and he also freezes. “I – sweet mother of Robert Hofstadter – forget _us_ , how is _he_ still alive?”

Virgil is now propping Thomas up and trying to examine him, as if for clues. “Well, his feet are a fucking mess. That checks out.”

“He walked for _six hours_?” Patton practically wails.

“I think we’re all ignoring the most important part, here,” says Roman. “He was in the clearing again. You know, the _place we joked about having a fairy ring in it?_ He’s wearing strange clothing, and he looks like he’s been dragged backwards through several thorny bushes at painfully high velocity. Three times. Blindfolded.”

“What does that have to do with anything?” Remus demands.

Roman holds his ground. “I’m saying that he probably escaped from wherever they took him. But he didn’t manage to bring everything back with him.”

“Mm,” hums Janus. “There’s something missing.”

Patton scrambles up to join Virgil and Logan and Thomas on the couch. He barely touches Thomas for a second before he recoils like he’s been shocked, and then immediately scrambles to press his hands to Thomas’s chest – face screwed up in intense concentration.

“His heart’s wrong,” he says after a moment of this, and the way he intones it is so serious and unlike him that Roman does a double-take.

“What do you-?” Roman begins.

“I don’t _know_ what I mean,” huffs Patton, visibly frustrated. “I just... the heart’s my area, y’know? And I know when there’s something wrong there. That doesn’t mean I always know exactly what’s wrong with it, but I can _feel_ that it’s off.”

Logan frowns in that particular little way of his. That little frown that says ‘if things keep going the way they’re going I’m going to get seriously ridiculous ticked off, so you’d all better start making sense right this instant so help me god’. Or maybe it doesn’t mean that at all. “That sounds horrifyingly unempirical,” he says. “And not helpful in the least.”

“Well,” says Roman. “I think it’s pretty obvious what we need to do now.”

A pause.

“Noooo...?” Virgil scrunches up his face. “What-?”

“Thomas came back from that forest,” Roman says. “That’s where he got the flowers from. Whatever he lost, he left it there. And nobody else is going to get it back – at the very least, we might end up finding something, some sort of clue!”

“You’re not suggesting that we go back,” says Logan incredulously. “At this time of night? For no reason other than ‘we might find something there’?”

“Do we really have any other leads to follow?” Roman retorts. “And do we really want to leave Thomas like _this_ for another moment longer?”

There’s a very long pause.

“I’ll get the car keys,” says Virgil.

“Phone charger,” says Janus, swivelling neatly on his heel to hurry into the other room. “And water. And flashlights.”

“I’ll – I suppose I’ll write a note for Joan,” Logan says reluctantly. “Or whoever it may concern. Just in case... something happens.”

“Excellent,” sighs Roman, although it really isn’t anything of the sort. “In that case, you two can help me carry Thomas to the car. _He’s_ certainly not going to be any help.”

“Wait,” says Virgil, freezing. “You all should probably go raid Thomas’s closet before we go.”

“What?” says Patton. “Why?”

“Because, no offense, but absolutely none of you are dressed for walking through a forest late at night,” replies Virgil. “Especially if we’re all actually, you know, _real_ this time.” He gestures at his hoodie and jeans and comparatively sensible sneakers. “I should be good, but – Logan, I’m so sorry, if you wear that suit you’re going to _die_.”

Logan looks momentarily offended by the very concept of having to change out of his eternal stuck-up college professor look, but then frowns and nods, acquiescing. “Fine,” he says. “That is – that’s reasonable. We should all do that.”

“Not to worry, I’ll just imagine us all up some fabulous fashionable finery absolutely _fit_ for forest exploration!” Roman announces brightly, raising his hand to do just that.

Janus returns with a canvas bag full of the items he had mentioned before and what looks like several bottles of water. “Sure you will,” he says. “How’s that going for you?”

“Oh,” Roman mutters, as he realizes once more that his usual Bring-Anything-Into-Existence powers aren’t working. At all. He lowers his hand. “I’ll – fuck.”

“I’ll get the clothes,” Patton says quickly. “Hopefully Thomas has enough spare pairs of shoes...”

One quick fashion montage later and they all look almost like normal human beings. Except, you know, the whole ‘all more or less identical’ thing.

Patton’s just swapped out his dad-shorts for some jeans. Virgil’s wearing his usual getup – completely unchanged, which is _so_ unfair it’s unbelievable.

His brother’s just wearing a normal t-shirt and another pair of jeans and a hoodie. Granted, he _had_ speedily and pointedly taken a pair of scissors to all of those articles of clothing and roughed them up real good before even starting to put them on, but it’s still completely bizarre to see him wearing something that doesn’t look like it was pulled straight out of the ‘donate to the nearest rubbish tip ASAP’ section of the community theatre costume rack.

Roman’s stolen that cool red leather jacket of Thomas’s, found a button-up that’s not too hideously objectionable, and thrown his sash over the top of all of it for good measure. Logan’s just switched from jeans to sweatpants and the single other pair of sneakers that Thomas owns, and Janus has elected to completely change things up – a turtleneck, of all things, and a ratty-looking yellow scarf that Roman swears none of them ever bought. He hasn’t even got his hat on. He looks like a completely different person.

He and Remus half-lift, half-drag Thomas to the front door together, grumbling at each other and arguing more in huffs and facial expressions than any actual spoken language.

It’s only when Patton pulls the keys from the rack near the door that they all realize that none of them have ever actually driven a car before.

“Well, obviously I know the theory,” Logan says. “Thomas knows how to drive, ergo I should be able to as well. I don’t foresee this being a problem.”

“But knowing the theory doesn’t mean anything when it comes to real life!” Virgil objects. “What if we _crash?_ That’d be a really good way to end this fucked-up little adventure of ours – crashing the car and _dying_ while trying to drive to a place that might not even be any help to us at all!”

“I get where you’re coming from, Overthink-182, really – I do – but we’ve never accomplished anything by not giving it a decent go,” Roman huffs, frustrated, and adds, more to get things moving than anything else: “Look, if none of you want to, I will.”

“I’m perfectly willing!” Logan says. Grabs the keys. Opens the front door. The night is pleasant and warm – a complete change from the previous night. “Out of all the things that may go wrong from this endeavour, my driving will _not_ be one of them.”

“What if we get pulled over?” Patton asks frantically. “ _None of us have driver’s licenses!_ ”

“Oh, for the love of –” Janus snatches Thomas’s wallet from the entrance hallway table, and shoves into Patton’s hands. “Use Thomas’s. _We all share his face._ ”

“That’s illegal and immoral,” Patton protests, like they’re not all dragging a half-conscious body out into the woods at nine PM at night to do some extremely questionable exploration in the darkness of the trees. “The police –”

“Fuck the police,” Janus says firmly. “And _no,_ Remus, that was not a suggestion, wipe that expression off your face – come on! Let’s _go._ ”

They pile into the car. Thomas gets the middle back seat because he’s not awake to complain about it, and they crush themselves around him, two on each side, Roman riding shotgun next to Logan. Logan starts the car with a twist of his wrist.

“Are we _sure_ about this – ” Virgil begins.

“No,” says Logan, and throws the car into reverse. It goes rocketing backwards, too fast; causing everyone to yell out in a simultaneous chorus of panic. He slams on the brakes before they can slam into anything important, like a tree or someone’s house. “All right, let’s... try that again. Less acceleration, I think.”

“Yes _please,_ ” Patton agrees fervently, halfway muffled by Janus’s shoulder. “I like my brains where they are, Lo, not splattered across the windscreen.”

Logan sets off down the road. It’s a bit bumpy and jerky, but he knows what he’s doing, and he’s getting better at it with every passing second. Muscle memory, or something. He also knows where he’s going, apparently, even in the dark.

Nobody they pass yells or otherwise points out the impossibility of somebody’s scattered personality fragments driving a car, nor are they pulled over for any other reason, like having seven people crammed uncomfortably and illegally in a five-seater car. (This is probably a good thing, but also kind of worrisome for some reason that’s hard to pin down.) Roman suspects that Logan’s pushing the speed limit a bit, because it takes them twenty minutes to get to the forest, rather than the solid half-hour it had taken them before.

They park in the lot just at the edge of the pines. Just like before, there’s nobody there, but all of a sudden, Roman really doesn’t like the look of the trees. It might just be because of last night’s traumatic forest-related experience, or maybe it’s the way that they look different without the sunlight filtering through them – or more likely, a combination of the two.

Janus and Virgil haul Thomas out into the rocky carpark, supporting one of his arms around each of their necks. He’s still completely unresponsive. Roman catches Janus looking devastatingly worried, out of the corner of his eye. There’s something close to sorrow and close to panic on his face as he mutters something at Thomas under his breath, although it’s gone the moment he actually registers that Roman’s looking at him.

“So, what,” says Remus. “We just go and find that clearing again? Kind of a shitty plan, if you ask me. And I’m the unmitigated _king_ of shitty plans.”

“Next time,” Virgil growls, “maybe bring that up _before_ we drive all the way out here to do it.”

“Didn’t it take us, like, an hour to get there last time?” Patton says. “Maybe we should leave Thomas here – one of us can stay back – ”

“No!” exclaims Roman before he’s even aware he’s saying it. A beat passes, and then he says, “No – I, I believe that he has to come with us for this.”

“Sure,” says Janus wearily. “Why not. It makes just as much sense as the rest of this _delightful_ evening so far.”

So they go into the forest, looking to find a clearing of trees in an eerily perfect circle.

Roman has Thomas in a bridal carry, which... he’s surprised he can actually manage, considering the loss of all of their more improbable abilities, but apparently Thomas is strong enough to lift himself. Which is a very excellent fact that he will urge Thomas to scatter liberally into conversations from now on, if they survive this.

Thomas is dead weight in his arms, and provides absolutely no interesting conversation whatsoever. Roman would be mildly theatrically annoyed if he wasn’t so unsettled. Thomas is _always_ there to talk to. He’s a constant, no matter if they’re awake or asleep or anywhere in between. And he’s right there, but it still feels like he’s missing a limb. Or a heart. Or some other very essential-to-survival organ.

“Penis,” Remus suggests, which is how Roman realizes he’s been monologuing to himself under his breath all this time. He grits his teeth and resolves to keep all future adventure notes purely internal. His witty commentary does _not_ need an incidental peanut gallery.

Logan’s navigating, again. They’re following the dirt path with the aid of multiple flashlights and Thomas’s phone, and it’s dark enough that even Roman is getting nervous. Which means that Virgil’s tense enough to snap a tree in half just by being in close proximity to it, and Patton’s keeping up a constant rambling string of puns that seems more reflexive than conscious.

About five minutes in, Logan stops and says, “Do you hear that?”

Roman stops, hefting Thomas in his arms – his shoulders are getting sore, which is... a novel and unwelcome sensation. Having a physical body that makes sense in the real world sucks, actually. He listens. “Is that the stream?”

“I didn’t think we were that close yet,” Patton notes with an audible frown.

The sound of rushing water is coming from their left. It’s loud and getting more obvious and distinct with every passing second.

“Hey,” says Virgil. “I don’t like this.”

“Not surprising. There is nothing about this situation _to_ like,” Logan says.

“So, are we going to go off the clearly-marked path into what is probably a really horrible trap or ambush of some sort,” Roman starts, and then Remus is already leading them forward and Logan is doing the same, so he takes that as a yes and follows the rest of the group.

Beyond the dark trees, there is not a river. There’s not even a thin trickle of stream, although the sound of rushing water is louder than ever. Instead, they’re somehow in that clearing – and it’s hard to miss that it is, in fact, the very same clearing as before.

It’s perfectly circular, naturally grown, and when Roman glances back over his shoulder, the path they came from is nowhere to be seen. The moonlight streams in from above, forming large patches of surreal brightness over the unsettlingly green grass, which is so green it almost glows. And apart from the sound of the water, cascading faster and faster all around them; it’s silent – no birds, no insects, no wind.

The scattered remains of their flower crowns are still strewn all over the grass. It’s an innocuous enough sight – and, indeed, they don’t even appear to have been disturbed in any way – but still. There’s something about it that makes Roman very, very uneasy. Very carefully, he sets Thomas down on the ground, and crouches down next to him, ready to defend him at the slightest hint of anything going wrong.

“All right,” says Virgil. “We’re here. Somehow. What do we do now?”

Remus points at the mushrooms surrounding the blackberry bush, on the far side of the clearing. “Isn’t that what started all of this?” he says. “Maybe we should start there. Tear it up or stomp it to pieces or something. I’ll do it. I’m doing it now.”

“That’s – kiddo, no!” Patton protests. “That’s _not_ a good idea, let’s just stop and take a moment to –”

Nope. Remus is stomping at the mushroom circle as viciously as he can. There’s a second or so where Roman is convinced that Remus has awakened the anger of the old gods or the fairies or something and the world is about to come crashing down around them in fire and brimstone, etcetera, etcetera, but... none of that is happening.

Seeing Remus wreak havoc upon the unsuspecting fungal wildlife isn’t even very interesting, after the first five seconds. Roman’s gaze wanders. He sees that Logan is giving the clearing as a whole an increasingly worried and wary look, and he narrows in on that, because it seems plot-relevant.

“What’s going on, Teach?”

Logan visibly swallows. He looks over at Roman. “I’ve just remembered a certain detail about fairy rings,” he says. “If that _is_ what we’re dealing with here.”

Oh no, Roman thinks. “Oh, good,” he says with a brightness he doesn’t feel. “Feel free to share at any time.”

“The thing is,” says Logan, now watching Remus reduce the remaining mushrooms to puffy, tofu-like shreds with Thomas’s most threatening pair of hiking boots, “they don’t necessarily have to be formed out of mushrooms.”

Roman looks up, looks around, looks at the trees. The perfect circle of grass and moss, traced out around them like the centre of a dartboard – surrounded by trees. “You don’t mean – ” he starts, and doesn’t finish, because it’s at that very moment that something _shifts_ , and he reflexively, instinctively, presses closer to Thomas.

It takes him a full second to actually process what’s happened.

The trees are gone.

It doesn’t make sense, it _can’t_ make sense; they were right there and Roman hadn’t blinked or anything and his surroundings hadn’t actually changed but the _trees are gone._ They’re still in the forest but there are no trees, not _anywhere_.

“What on _earth,_ ” Logan gasps, sounding a bit choked up. “What is – how are – _what?_ ”

“ _Remus, what did you do,_ ” Virgil growls.

The rushing water is louder than ever. It’s coming from directly ahead. They’re in a forest with no trees and there’s no mist but also there is mist, and if it’s making _Roman’s_ head split like someone’s taken an axe right down the middle of it, he can’t imagine what it must be like for any of the members of their party who are less creatively inclined.

“We should,” begins Janus, then stops, then says, “We aren’t,” and then stops again, and then blurts out, “ _We can’t stay here._ ”

“The river,” says Remus, stumbling backwards from where the mushrooms were – they’re still there, except they’re not – and back into the larger group. “We’ve got to get to the river.”

“How do we even know the river’s still _there?”_ Virgil demands. “It doesn’t look like _anything’s_ still here!”

“It’s all there,” Roman says. “It’s just that... we aren’t. Not anymore. I think. It’s hard to tell.”

“I don’t understand,” moans Logan. His hands go up to his hair, and he tugs, and then tugs, and then tugs again. “ _I don’t understand,_ ” he repeats, voice thick and choked-up. He sounds like he’s having to force the words out of his mouth. “This isn’t right, I don’t understand, I don’t – ”

Logan’s not built for this sort of situation. Roman just kind of wants to wrap him up into a hug so he doesn’t have to look at any of it, but he’s got Thomas to deal with – he’s already scooped him up, ready to start walking forwards – and surprisingly, it’s Janus who hitches up his canvas bag over one shoulder, takes Logan by the forearms and starts leading him gently towards the sound of the rushing water, murmuring something to him that Roman can’t quite make out.

Nobody looks very happy at all about the situation, which is fair.

It takes them less than a minute to reach the river, which is tangible and real in a way that everything else is not. It’s deeper and wider and darker than Roman remembers – rushing past, approaching from no discernible source and disappearing off into the mist.

There are two things worth noting about the river. The first is that there is a small, fragile-looking boat anchored to a rock on the riverbank. It contains no sails, no oar, no passengers – nothing. It’s the most generic boat you ever did see, and it’s bobbing around frantically in the current, apparently waiting for passengers.

The second thing worth noting is the ominous-looking figure standing on the riverbank, clad in a long dark cloak. It’s kind of impossible to make out the details of their face because of how dark it is and how wrong everything feels right now, but Roman gets the distinct impression that their arrival has shocked and unsettled this person in a major way.

“Hello there!” Patton calls as they approach. “Um – sorry to bother you, but we’re kind of lost. Would you mind giving us directions...?”

“Directions?” asks the cloaked figure. He definitely sounds startled – and also, Scottish. The Scottish accent is hard to ignore. He turns, gazing at all of them in turn. His apparent gaze lingers on Roman for a second, inclining his head at the sight of Thomas in his arms. Then he straightens up. “I... well, I suppose I can. What on earth are you looking for – out here, at this hour of the night?”

The Sides exchange glances.

“Ah,” says Logan, who’s still leaning against Janus for support. “You know, that’s... an extremely good question.”

“Our friend is... sick,” explains Roman after a second, and indicates Thomas with his chin – still stubbornly unconscious, of course. “We think someone of otherworldly origin might have done something to him. So we’re trying to get to...” He hesitates. “...someplace else.”

“Any ideas?” asks Janus, with the tone of voice that indicates he’s not expecting much in the way of a coherent, helpful response.

The cloaked stranger regards them for a second longer, and then laughs. “Aha! You’ll be looking to go downstream, then. That’s easy enough.” He steps to one side. “Just take the boat.”

Everyone processes this very sensible and reasonable offer for a moment.

“That... does _not_ look safe,” Virgil says.

“Oh, it’s not,” says the stranger. His accent really is quite lovely. Roman mentally fills in the blanks that the darkness creates, imagining a wry grin and perhaps an ominous wink or two for flavor. “But it seems to me that your friend doesn’t have long left for this world. So, do you really have much choice?”

“Not long left-? _Hey,_ ” Remus snaps, and takes a step forward – the stranger matches his pace, neatly moving backwards along the gentle curve of the riverbank. “ _Hey!_ What the hell are you talking about?”

“Is Thomas going to die if we don’t get him somewhere?” Patton demands, fingers twisting around and around into his jeans pockets. “How? Where? Why?”

“He’s been touched by the _aos sí,_ ” replies the stranger, taking another step back. He sounds calm, which is impressive considering that Remus is approaching him with all the barely-restrained fury of a rabid bulldog. “It’s not hard to figure that out; I can practically feel it from where I’m standing.”

“So,” prompts Janus.

“So the only way to reverse a curse or binding from the Fair Folk tends to be confronting them directly about it,” says the stranger. He pauses, then says, “And could you _please_ call your friend off? I am only trying to help.”

“ _Call me off?”_ says Remus, and laughs. “Oh, I’d like to see them try!”

“Remus,” says Virgil, low and frustrated. “Come on, let’s just – ” And then louder, directed at the stranger. “ – so, what? We just get in the boat and float off to fairyland? And then what?”

The cloaked figure inclines his shoulders in a slight shrug. “I really couldn’t tell you. Figuring that out is your business – I’m only giving you directions.”

There really aren’t very many other options. It’s either keep walking into the dizzying wrongness, go _back_ (into more dizzying wrongness), or... get in the boat.

So.

Yes.

The boat looks like it shouldn’t fit all seven of them. It also _feels_ like it shouldn’t fit all seven of them. Once more, they get Thomas situated in the middle, and all just kind of cram themselves into place around him. The boat sinks low in the water, and there are one or two ominous creaks, but it’s not too dangerously unbalanced and it seems like it’ll be able to hold them all.

“You may need to pay a toll,” adds the stranger, stepping back. “But the price shouldn’t be all that extravagant. Stop at the town, you’ll know when you see it. And safe travels!”

“Thank you,” says Logan. Talking to someone else seems to have almost brought him back from the point of breaking completely. Actually, Roman feels the same way – almost grounded by the reality of someone else being there, knowing what to do.

“Wait,” says Patton, as Virgil leans over to untether the boat from the riverbank – and leans out to address the hooded person now standing where the trees should really be. “Where are you going? Don’t you need the boat to get somewhere?”

The figure just laughs from where he’s standing on the riverbank. “It’s very kind of you to worry, Patton, but I’m sure I’ll find my way to wherever I need to be,” he says, and then Virgil succeeds in unhooking the rope keeping them in place, and the current sweeps them away like an unfinished thought.

Roman most definitely does not scream in a very undignified and most un-princely manner, because that would be mortifying. However, they _are_ going at a downright breakneck pace and quite a few other people are screaming so if he _does_ end up making a bit of noise, it’s not as if anyone else is going to notice too much.

The colors of the treeless forest blur into shades of green and grey around them, streaking into bright white which it’s impossible to discern the origin of, and the water spray is soaking them from head to toe. Squinting through the spray as he hunkers down, Roman can see that Virgil is clinging to Thomas tightly, as if to prevent him from falling out.

“He knew my name?!” Patton shrieks over the roaring of the river and the rushing of the wind around them. “This is worrying! Is anybody else worried by this?”

“Quite frankly,” Janus bellows back, “I think we have other things to worry about! Like, oh, you know, _not dying on this boat trip from hell!_ ”

Almost as soon as he says it, though, the boat slows down. They’re still moving pretty darn fast, but it seems like it’s possible to communicate without wrecking their lungs screaming, and their surroundings are no longer a complete blur. And, actually – their surroundings seem to have changed, again.

“The trees!” Remus screeches – he doesn’t _have_ to be screeching, the absolute trash goblin, but it seems like he just wants to anyway – “They’re back! Thank fuck!”

The trees _are_ back. Actually, it seems like the river is still coasting along the edge of the forest, which surrounds them on both sides – but see, here’s the thing. It doesn’t look like the same forest they had started out in. Instead of tall pines and dense shrubbery, the trees seem to be tall and thin and tightly packed together. Roman sees several impossibly large mossy rocks and what look like abandoned stone structures as they coast along.

And – oh, yes, here’s something important – it’s no longer night. The sun isn’t visible through the grey clouds obscuring the sky, but it’s very clearly early morning; going by the fresh, clean feeling in the air, and the distant, unfamiliar birdsong.

Roman quickly checks on Thomas. He seems undamaged by the frenetic ride. Still unconscious, though. Roman doesn’t know why he’s bothering at this point.

“Hm,” says Virgil, surprisingly mildly. He adjusts his position in the boat so he’s sitting up straighter, and glances around. “Have we considered that this is all just a fever dream or acid trip of some sort?”

Patton makes a noise like he’s just choked on something he’d mistakenly swallowed. “ _We don’t do drugs!_ ” he objects, after another few seconds of wordless sputtering.

“Maybe _you_ don’t,” snorts Remus. “Speak for yourself, Old Blood ‘n’ Guts!”

“What-?” Patton says.

“You also don’t do drugs,” says Logan, cutting neatly over Patton’s confusion. “I removed your cocaine supply months ago.”

Remus frowns. “Then what was-?”

“Pixy Stix,” Logan says primly. “I predicted that you would not be able to tell the difference. Unsurprisingly, I was right.”

“Are we all just skipping over the bit where Virgil suggested this situation was a mass hallucination?” Roman demands.

“Would it even really be a mass hallucination, though?” Logan says. “Seeing as we’re all the same person –”

“I’m just saying,” Virgil says, louder, “maybe Thomas had a bit too much wine last night! Or – or he hit his head going down the stairs. This could all be because we’ve been running around his imagination like headless chickens for the last day and a half and we just haven’t noticed yet!”

“Okay, first of all, that’s fucking stupid,” says Remus. “ _Running around his imagination?_ The imagination isn’t a _place,_ genius.”

“It isn’t?” Patton says, looking disappointed. “Aww – but there’s some really great stories about that – ”

“Even if it were,” interjects Janus, “do you think those two – ” He gestures at Roman and Remus both. “ – could actually come up with anything on _this_ level?”

“I could!” Roman says, affronted, and bumps knees with Remus. “And if I couldn’t get some of the – the more _distressing_ details right, I’m sure my brother could manage it. He’s terrifying like that.”

“Aww, thanks,” Remus says with a crooked grin. He looks up, and his eyes go wide _. “Damn!_ That sure is a palace!”

Roman nearly gives himself a case of severe whiplash turning around to see what he’s talking about, and – _damn,_ he’s actually right.

The forest around them has begun to clear and thin, revealing that the river is winding downwards into a lush valley just underneath a vast, jagged mountain that juts up into the sky like it’s trying to impale it upon its peak somehow. Spilling out of the mountain is what looks to be a fortress. Broad, sweeping architecture that’s so natural that it looks more like it’s been grown out of the stone, rather than carved. Towers and balconies and windows so big that they can be seen even from all this distance away. It’s a jaw-dropping sight.

“And a town!” adds Patton, scrambling to the front of the boat to see it better – and nearly tipping them over in the process, although he doesn’t appear to notice this. “Aww – look at it, it’s so cute!”

Roman looks down at the comparatively tiny town at the foot of the mountain. It’s quaint and medieval in appearance, although the bright lights shining up at them from the tiny windows and rooftops, even from all this distance, are so bright as to appear more electric than natural.

“What even _is_ this place?” Virgil says in astonishment. “There’s no way we’re in Florida anymore. This – it doesn’t even look like America. It doesn’t even look like the twenty-first century. Did we make a wrong turn and end up in Middle Earth?”

“Ho there!” comes a cry from the riverbank, and their collective attention is torn from the sight of the town and the palace to a diminutive figure who’s standing on a tiny, functional dock to their right, waving at them down with a feathered cap held in one hand.

“Ho?” Remus says, perking up. “Where?”

The figure on the dock doesn’t appear to hear him, which is probably for the best. “You’ve reached the toll point! Dock here, or face a most terrible penalty!”

“Hi, new person!” Patton calls back, waving back as they approach. “We’d love to, but we have no idea how to stop this thing!”

“What he said!” Roman agrees. “Help would be greatly appreciated!”

The hat-waving person hauls out a rope from where it’s been coiled neatly over one of the dock posts, and yells, “Catch this!” before flinging it in their direction.

There is a brief, panicked scuffle as all of them try to catch it at once; yelling indistinctly at each other, fingers sliding uncooperative over the slightly damp and faintly slimy rope. Finally, Virgil manages to get a good grip and, with the person on the dock holding the other end of it steady, they haul their way over so their tiny oarless boat is flush with the dock. The person on it squashes their cap inelegantly back over their wild, curly hair, and secures the rope in place along the dock.

“Thank you very much, my good – er, person,” Roman says, panting a bit from exertion. “This has been a _very_ turbulent journey so far, let me tell you.”

“Of course,” they reply cheerily – their accent is also Scottish, Roman notes, and wonders if they’ve somehow, improbably ended up in Scotland, of all places – and then perform an admirably comical double-take as they get a good look at Roman’s face. “ _Good lord._ It’s you!”

“What?” says Roman blankly, even as the cap-wearing person – dressed, quite notably, in some sort of brown, medieval-looking tunic covered in all sorts of pouches and pockets – hurries up to the edge of the dock to get a proper look at everyone in the boat. “Sorry, do we... know you?” There’s something weirdly familiar about them, although he can’t quite place his finger on it.

“I would not think so, no,” they say. “But all of you! – it’s extraordinary. It really is. You look exactly like him!”

“Huh?” says Patton.

Logan says, “I see. I take it you met Thomas at some point while he was here last night.”

“Twice, as a matter of fact,” they say. They sit down at the edge of the dock, cross-legged. “Poor fellow. He was quite beside himself on his way here, and even more distressed on the way back. Quite frankly, I’m astonished he managed to make it all the way back to you.”

“So were we, to be perfectly honest.” Logan runs a hand through his hair. “...You don’t have any questions about us? Our state of existence?”

“Well, you’re the physicalized extrapolation of his overall personality and mental states of being, aren’t you?”

There’s a pause as they all process this.

“...Yes,” agrees Virgil. “Yes, we are. But how the fuck you do even know that?”

“Thomas mentioned it,” they say with a half-grin. “In passing. Although it was very scattered, and extremely vague, and I only understood parts of it. Meeting you in person clarifies only a very small amount of it all.”

“In that case, we are... Thomas Sanders, I guess!” says Patton with a wry little smile. “Hello!”

“As charming as that little bit of rhetoric is, we all do have proper names,” points out Logan. “Logan Sanders. That’s Roman, he’s Patton, and –” Quickly, efficiently, he introduces everyone in their group. “And you apparently already know Thomas.”

“Shane Sine D’Arc, at your service,” they reply, tipping their hat with a flourish. “Tollkeeper, local river guide. A pleasure to meet all of you.”

“Likewise,” says Logan calmly. “Shane, we were told that Thomas had been cursed by the fae, and that the best way to resolve that curse was to go confront them directly.”

“Then if I understand the circumstances correctly, you’ll be looking for the Erlking,” says Shane. “Down to the town, and all the way up the mountain; he’s hard to miss. Although, before you go – I’ll need payment.”

“Payment?” Remus shrugs, and then reaches for the zipper of his jeans. “Well, if you insist – ”

“ _No,_ ” says Janus, shoving him back. “What do you want? I’m warning you, we don’t really have all that much between us, and personally, I’m extremely disappointed that capitalism still exists in this fantasy world we’ve apparently ended up in, _so._ ”

“I’m not all that choosy,” Shane says. “Anything of value will do. I wouldn’t ask – you all seem to be in a hurry – but rules are rules.”

Janus digs into that canvas bag of supplies that he’s apparently still carrying, and produces – an iPhone charging cable?

“Here.” He hands it to Shane without so much as a twitch in his expression. “This is an artefact of great power.”

Shane accepts the charging cord, examining it with interest. “This will do,” they say, fingering the plastic casing and the metal USB drive at the end.

“But – ” Patton starts. Roman elbows him, and he shuts up, although he looks unhappy about it.

“Good luck, all of you!” says Shane, standing up, and unhooking their boat from the dock. “I have a feeling you’ll need it.”

Everyone waves goodbye, except Thomas, who’s too unconscious to do that. Seriously, the amount of coma he’s in right now is _unbelievable._ Shane lets go of the rope, and they’re off again, coasting down the river on a swift current that’s sweeping them closer and closer to the town at the bottom of the valley.

“If you were going to complain about how giving a medieval tollperson a piece of anachronistic technology is immoral,” says Janus, when they’re an adequate distance away from the docks, “I invite you to suggest something _else_ I could have given them.”

“...No, actually,” says Patton. “I was – _charging cables are expensive,_ that’s all! Next time, give them a bag of granola.”

A pleasant ten seconds of silence occurs before the next topic of dilemma arises like a kraken rearing its ugly head from the depths of the Mariana Trench.

“They said ‘the Erlking’,” Logan notes, frowning.

“What about it?” Roman replies. “That’s a term for the king of the fairies – sounds to me like that’s _exactly_ who we’re looking for.”

“That’s true enough, but... ‘Erlking’ is a German word. And all evidence up to now suggests that the mythology we’re dealing with is Scottish in origin.” He gestures back towards the dock, which is already retreating into the distance behind them. “Shane, that person at the river, the Tam Lin allusion, the _aos sí_ being namechecked. But this...”

Logan falls silent and his frown deepens. Roman feels a sudden tightening of dread in his stomach – and he doesn’t entirely know why.

Logan doesn’t say anything else for the rest of the boat trip.


	5. roman (ii)

The boat slows down as they approach the town, even though the river itself doesn’t seem to be flowing any gentler than before, and it bumps to a halt against the riverbank, just underneath a small earthy overhang. The town that they’d been approaching looks like it’s only a short walk away – the overhang is just off the side of a tidy cobbled path leading directly into it.

After several failed attempts to restart the boat, Roman groans and admits defeat. “Looks like we’re going to have to go on foot the rest of the way if we ever want to get to that castle.”

“The castle seems to be several hours walk from here,” Logan says, adjusting his glasses and peering up towards their goal. “Not ideal, considering the state Thomas is in. I suggest we search the town for some method of transport or, failing that, at least somewhere to stay for the night.”

“We can talk to people, too,” Patton chimes in, leaning forward. “Somebody’s bound to know some sort of thing about this Earl person! Maybe we can find something to bribe him with to fix Thomas – candy or something. Everyone likes candy, right?”

“Dangerously reckless optimism aside, you may have a point,” Janus says. “Getting to grips with the social situation of this place may be a good idea. We have no idea how things really work around here, after all.”

“To the town it is, then,” agrees Roman. “Virgil, grab Thomas’s feet, and we can – ”

There’s a soft groan from the middle of the boat, and everyone freezes.

“...Guys?” Thomas mutters, eyelids fluttering open. “What’s-?”

Patton gasps and Virgil lets out a wordless exclamation, and everybody else yells out Thomas’s name in a remarkable display of synchronicity, and then suddenly, everyone’s scrambling to help Thomas sit up properly, because he seems to be too dizzy and uncoordinated to manage it on his own.

“Are you all right?” Logan demands, grabbing Thomas by the shoulders. “Look at me – is your vision blurry? Are you experiencing any chest pain or nausea or significant distress or a sudden intense urge to stab me again? What’s the date today – who’s the president?”

“Whoa, whoa – ” Thomas pushes weakly at Logan. “Slow down. I’m fine, I’m just tired, I – sorry, stab you? _Again?_ ”

Roman nearly cheers at this. “He’s back!” he whoops, and promptly sweeps Thomas into an enthusiastic hug. “I never thought I’d be glad to say this, but it looks like we don’t need to go on a quest after all!”

“Oh! Okay!” Thomas’s arms wrap carefully around Roman’s back, although his movements are slow and uncertain, and Roman is quickly realizing that he’s more or less holding Thomas up to prevent him from collapsing. “We’re doing hugs. That’s good. I like hugs.”

“Thomas seems to be in control of his mental faculties, more or less, yes,” Janus says. “Which is everything we need, clearly. It’s not like you’ve forgotten about the little manner of _my face_ and _sinking out_ and everything else. Have you tried summoning your sword yet?”

Roman’s heart sinks at this, and he reluctantly draws back from Thomas so he can reach his hand out into the air and try to pull his sword out. Or a bouquet of flowers. Or a nondescript stick. _Anything._ But nothing emerges.

“Hello, Janus,” says Thomas vaguely, with the hint of a smile. His gaze drifts sideways, and his face falls a fraction. “...and Remus. Hi. You’re here too, I guess? I feel like I should be more concerned about that.”

“Hiya,” says Remus. “Say, Thomas – can you think of any penis-related sword-summoning jokes? I’m coming up with nothing, and I _know_ this is a rich source of untapped potential.”

Thomas blinks, and then blinks again, and then shakes his head like he’s trying to keep himself awake. “No-? You can’t? Isn’t that, like, your job?”

“Wow, _Remus_ is slipping,” snipes Virgil. “Things must really be getting bad.”

Patton’s been kind of squished up behind Thomas all this time, and he’s taking advantage of his position to press his ear to Thomas’s back – which is, quite frankly, really weird, but Roman’s not going to call him out for it. They’re all glad to see Thomas awake and responsive, it’s only natural that they’re going to express it in different ways.

“Thomas,” Patton says, pulling back from... well, his back. “Listen, kiddo, I love you a _lot_ and it’s _so_ good to see you up and at ‘em, but – there’s no easy way to put this. Your heart’s still wrong.”

“Uh,” says Thomas. “Aren’t _you_ my heart?”

“Sure am,” chirps Patton, patting at his hand. “But I meant more in the metaphorical sense.”

“Literal,” corrects Logan. “You mean literal. _You’re_ his metaphorical heart.”

“Oh,” Patton says. “Well, in that case, I _still_ don’t know what I mean. Which is fine and normal, unlike everything else that’s going on today. What I’m saying is, I think we might still need to go and have a nice long chat with that Earl person.”

Thomas tries to sit up properly on his own, but just ends up sinking back into the boat. “Okay, it seems like there’s a lot going on right now that I missed out on and I’m... kind of struggling to process it, I guess. Where are we? Is this some new part of the Mind Palace?” He pauses, and squints at all of them. “...Are you all wearing my clothes?”

“They’re our clothes, too, you know,” Remus huffs.

“And no,” Logan says. “This is not the Mind Palace, or anything of your creation, inadvertent or otherwise. This is...” He hesitates visibly. “We are... I – I don’t know where we are. But we had been led to believe that this is where you were last night. Does any of this seem familiar to you?”

“No,” replies Thomas, not even pausing to think about it. He looks around at the river, still flowing onwards, and then up at the brightly-lit town just above them. “The last thing I remember is going to bed after eating that pie. That was _good_ pie,” he adds musingly. “Making it was a good idea.”

Virgil pulls a face. “Mmmm, _probably not,_ but okay.”

“Hang on,” Thomas says, abruptly drawing himself out of pie-related pontification. “Shouldn’t you know that, though? I mean, you guys know everything that I do. Mostly everything,” he adds, with a glance at Janus. “And... not to sound like a Western cliché, but this boat really ain’t big enough for the five-six... seven of us. Do we really all need to be here?”

Everyone exchanges a glance. Well, they exchange several glances, but it’s mostly the same sentiment being communicated with those glances.

“We should see what’s going on with this town,” Logan says, straightening his tie. “Thomas, we can fill you in as we do so. Do you think you can stand?”

“I... _maybe?_ ”

“Mm-hm,” says Janus, and extends a hand out towards him. “Let’s see what I can do to help.”

“Thanks,” Thomas mutters, and allows Janus to help him up and off the boat. He staggers and limps and trips his way up to the bank, but manages to stay standing with a steady arm snaked around his waist, as everyone else moves up to join them. The moment that the last of them leaves the boat, it jolts back into life, seemingly of its own accord, and begins sailing away down the river. It picks up speed and, within less than a minute, disappears around a bend.

“Oh,” says Patton. “Oh, okay.”

“Excellent!” exclaims Remus, a bit too much genuine enthusiasm in his voice. “Now we’re trapped here!”

“I don’t understand,” Thomas says faintly. The short journey up seems to have drained the small amount of vitality he had gained upon waking up.

“We’ll do our best to explain,” Logan is quick to assure him. “Even though there’s parts of it that... well, even I, personally, am slightly unclear about.”

“No,” says Thomas, “no, not that – although... yes. That too, I guess. But, no. I don’t understand why you’re all _here._ I can’t feel you, you’re not… _me._ Not anymore. You don’t need to be here, helping me, or whatever you’re trying to do. You could have just left. Gone to do your own things. Not had to keep dealing with, you know. This.”

There is an uncomfortable pause.

“Well, despite everything, I am pleased to report that your self-preservation instinct remains as strong as ever,” Janus says, adjusting his scarf. “Even if you apparently want me to abandon you to the wolves. Honestly, what _are_ you talking about?

Virgil frowns and shifts uncomfortably, before his expression hardens. “Yeah, that sounds like bullshit. Why would not being attached to you mean that we walk out on you?”

“We still _are_ you,” is Roman’s contribution, although he feels his heart beating unreasonably fast even as he says it. “Honestly! It’s almost like you don’t want us around!”

“We love you, Thomas,” Patton adds softly. “Part of you or not. Being like this, it… I don’t know about the rest of you, but for me it _hurts._ I want to be right back in place. As soon as I can.”

Thomas seems on the verge of arguing this point, but then he just slumps. “I… yeah. You’re right. I’m sorry, guys, I’m just…” He trails off.

“You think you’re going to get away from me _that_ easily?” Remus points out with a fierce, horrible grin. To this, Thomas lets out an exhausted huff of a laugh.

“Yes, quite,” agrees Logan. “And now that Thomas is sufficiently reassured that we’re here for him and always will be - shall we get going? We have a lot of ground to cover, and I don’t think we’ll want to be covering it in after sunset.”

*

The town is, in a word, _lovely._ It’s your classic tiny cosy fantasy town, torn straight from the Hobbit or maybe a Ghibli movie. Cheerful people in period costume going about their business; baking and selling bread, carting along scrap metal, brewing up potions on street corners. And as it turns out, the bright, electric-looking lights that had been visible even from such a distance weren’t so much _electric_ as _magic –_ glowing balls of pure energy that hover in place, and they’re practically everywhere. This makes Roman unreasonably happy for many reasons, and also makes him very much want to steal at least one of these to take home with him.

At the town entrance, they all split into smaller groups. A lot of them aren’t happy about this, Roman included – splitting the party is nearly always a terrible idea, _especially_ where towns and magic and curses are concerned – but Logan insists and since _Logan_ is the _logical_ one with all the clever ideas and everything... ah, well. Never mind all that. His reasoning had been ‘seven more-or-less identical people wandering around together might attract the wrong kind of attention, so let’s try to limit that’, and that _does_ make some amount of sense, so.

The groups are divided thusly: Virgil and Patton. Logan and Remus. Janus and Roman – and Thomas. Roman’s noble team has been tasked with finding transport and/or somewhere to stay, while the others are off information gathering, so that’s precisely what they’re going to do.

Thomas is still staggering around like a drunken lamb, and Janus is pretty much half-carrying him everywhere, brushing aside Thomas’s murmured awkward apologies with a lot of eye-rolling and ‘it’s what I do most of the time _anyway;_ don’t act like this is a new thing. Usually metaphorically, but that’s not the point.’

Despite having been given a pretty comprehensive explanation as to what’s going on, Thomas looks like... well, like he still has next to no idea what’s going on. He’s present and coherent, but weirdly docile – content to just let everyone drag him along without contributing much of his own. Roman can’t remember if this is normal for him or not. If it is, he’s usually not this obvious about it.

They get a couple of weird looks, but it’s more for their strange attire than anything else. The ways they hold themselves – and the Lying King’s snake makeup (snakeup) – are different enough that it’s not so much ‘hey, those three guys are identical clones!’ and more like ‘hm, weird but cool; you don’t see many triplets around these days’. Plus, Roman is _extremely_ charming.

The general consensus from all the people they talk to seems to be that any sort of transport – horses, carts, _anything_ – is way out of their price range. Which, to be clear, is nonexistent, because neither Roman nor anyone else in their group has anything even _resembling_ a ‘pfennig’, whatever that is.

“Useless,” growls Janus to himself, as they make their way out of the blacksmith’s shopfront. “ _Completely_ useless. We should have thought before we set off –”

“There’s no way we could have known,” says Roman. “We’ll have to find a way to earn some money, that’s all. It can’t be all that difficult, not with our extensive skillset. S. Skillsets. One skillset, split into six... and a half?”

“You think so?” Janus says with a faint snort. “That’s just –”

“Did that lady seem familiar to you?” Thomas interrupts dazedly. “Like – familiar, but not all that familiar-?”

“Thomas,” says Roman, after a short pause. “We have never seen any of these people in our collective life.”

“Familiar how?” Janus asks, distracted, hitching Thomas’s arm up more securely over his shoulder.

Thomas blinks, and shrugs, and eventually mutters, “Dahlia,” and doesn’t say anything else on the subject, no matter how much he’s prodded about it.

“Ooookay,” says Roman. “Thomas’s terrifying troublesome tangents aside, we’ve got to find some job. Any bright ideas?”

“Steal money,” Janus suggests.

“Let’s not,” mumbles Thomas. “What sort of odd jobs do you think they have around here? Doesn’t look like there’s many cars to wash...”

“Perhaps they’ll need horse-washers instead,” Janus says.

“Cutting wood, possibly,” says Roman, “or collecting potion ingredients – slaying foul beasts in the woods – there’s bound to be an abundance of things to do around here – ”

He’s about to say more, when he sees an unfairly gorgeous man sitting on the steps of a nearby home, and he can’t look away. (No, not like that.) (Well, maybe just a bit like that.)

He’s tall and dark-skinned and he has something that somewhat resembles a guitar but looks closer in form to a lute or some other medieval instrument resting in his lap. He plucks at it as he chats idly with a cheerful-looking woman who’s perched on the railing just above him. The upturned cap filled with coin that’s resting in front of him indicates that he’s performing for money – although maybe not at the moment.

Janus catches Roman’s gaze, and says, “ _No_. Absolutely not,” but Roman’s already got a really excellent plan and he’s _raring_ to put it into action.

He hears Thomas laugh and say, “Too late, I guess,” – and Janus’s answering huff of frustration, but Roman’s already coming up to the handsome stranger, who glances up from his conversation and raises an eyebrow.

“Greetings and salutations – hail and well met!” Roman exclaims with a wave. “I couldn’t help but notice your lovely instrument, and your equally lovely face.”

The man laughs suddenly, surprised; like he hadn’t expected to be amused, and is really quite enjoying it despite that. “Well now! Free compliments! Those are in short supply these days. Or is it free?” His gaze sharpens. “Are you expecting something in return?”

“Only your name, my dear handsome stranger,” says Roman, with a slight bow.

“Octavian of Kadath,” says the man with a crinkle in his brow that Roman hopes means he’s been charmed thoroughly by this. He strums out a colorful swirl of notes. “Troubadour, troublemaker, and tremendously good at what I do. That’s my name – and yours, in return, if I may be so bold?”

“Prince Roman of...” Roman flails internally for a terrifying split-second. “...uh, Sanders. Storyteller, nicknamer, dreamer. Also, extremely broke.”

Octavian of Kadath looks him up and down for a moment with a sort of half-smile, and shifts his fingers into another position. Another flurry of notes, this time spaced out and arpeggiated. “A prince? We don’t see many of _those_ around these parts.” He affects a low bow that’s just on the pleasant end of mocking. “My apologies for not recognizing royalty when I see it, my Lord.”

Roman’s brain stutters. Damn it. Damn it, now’s not the time – “No need for formalities, please, just call me Roman. My companions and I are from quite a ways away,” Roman says. “And we’ve made the grave mistake of leaving our wallets – er, coin purses – at home.”

“All of you?” says the woman. Roman notices that she’s holding a rudimentary sort of tambourine – a thin membrane stretched over a wooden frame, metal dangling from the edges.

“All of us,” Roman confirms. “Our departure was speedy. And not very well planned.”

Octavian plucks absently at the lowest string of his instrument; a repeated drone of a note. “Is this your way of begging for my money? If it is, it’s certainly the most original extortion attempt I’ve ever been on the receiving end of.”

“I would never,” says Roman, scandalized. “All I’m asking is a chance to earn some money. Since you seem to have the current monopoly on street performance – ”

“We do?” Octavian replies, another amused little smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.

“I certainly haven’t seen any _other_ instrument-wielding people on the streets today,” says Roman. “I was hoping I could steal your spotlight for a bit. Maybe share it – you know what the people want more than I do. I promise you,” he adds. “I’m well worth your time.”

“Hm. Tempting.” Octavian turns to his friend. “Heli? What do you think?”

“I say we let him try,” says the woman. “He’s cute.”

“I am, thank you,” says Roman. “As a side note, I’m also very gay. In case either of you were, you know, wondering.”

“Noted and appreciated,” says Octavian of Kadath with a grin. “But the most important thing is this – can you sing?”

“Can I _sing,_ ” Roman says, delighted. “ _Can I sing,_ you ask!”

“He can definitely sing,” calls Thomas with a weak little huff of laughter. He and Janus have taken up residence on one of the abandoned piles of sandbags.

Janus is positively fussing over Thomas (who seems more bemused by this treatment than anything else), and he glowers up at Roman. “Please ask yourself this, if you can spare a braincell for it. Do we _really_ have time for one of your childish musical interludes?”

“I can sing,” Roman tells Octavian firmly. “And I even have a song or two in mind already. If you’d excuse me for a second...”

Octavian nods. “I’ll drum up a crowd,” he says, and springs to his feet, cape flourishing all around him in splashes of red and gold. His friend – Heli, apparently – takes her tambourine-like instrument and starts tapping out a merry beat as his fingers dance across the strings in a rousing, rollicking ride of a melody.

Roman nods along for a moment or two before abruptly remembering what he had been intending to do. He hurries over to Janus and Thomas. “All right. Air your grievances now, if you must.”

“You just can’t resist the idea of stepping into the limelight, I see,” says Janus, standing up to meet him. “Or the medieval equivalent, anyway.”

Roman bristles. “Well, I don’t see _you_ jumping in with any bright money-making ideas, the Lie Who Didn’t Like Musicals! I’m simply using the talents at my disposal – and if it means that I get to show off a bit, well... I won’t deny that does have its appeals. But it’s for the good of the team!”

“Leave him alone,” Thomas says, nudging at Janus’s side. “It’s a win-win situation all around. We get money, Roman gets to perform, I get to rest for a bit, you get to... sit here with me and make fun of him? I don’t know what you like to do for fun.”

“ _Hey_ ,” Roman protests.

“Me?” Janus’s hand raises to his chest. “Make fun of people? _Never._ ” He sighs, and then takes a seat next to Thomas once more. “Very well, then. Do remember that we’ve got to meet back up with the others in approximately half an hour.”

“Have fun,” says Thomas, giving him a double thumbs-up.

Roman ruffles Thomas’s hair affectionately and hurries back to Octavian of Kadath, which is harder than it had been a few minutes ago, because the amount of people on the street has thickened since he and Heli had started to perform. There’s a bunch of kids running around and yelling their little lungs out and quite a few exasperated parents trying to tug them back from getting in the musicians’ respective ways. Mostly, though, people are hovering around out the front of their houses and businesses, chattering quietly but eagerly to each other. Apparently this sort of performance is equivalent to a popular early-morning television show – Steven Universe, maybe.

Octavian nudges out the money-hat to where it’ll be more obviously in reach for the crowd, and, tuning his instrument, turns to Roman. “You’re up, m’lord,” he says with a grin that makes his teeth glint bright in the mid-morning light.

“But of course,” grins Roman. “Major key, upbeat tempo – if you wouldn’t mind giving me a beat...?”

Heli obligingly starts tapping out a cheerful jingly rhythm against her thigh, and at Roman’s indication, speeds it up even more. Roman quietly hums the simple tune that he has in mind, and after only a few bars, Octavian starts strumming, too – bright, shining chords and a sparkling ostinato.

Roman bounces on his heels, wiggles his fingers, blows a kiss to Janus, and starts to sing.

_“Oh I once knew a snake with a grin and a wink  
And a cape and a hat to boot  
He'd lie and he'd fake like a silver-tongued skink  
Of particularly ill repute!_

_Though his glibness I admired (he had multitudes of that)  
Every day it went the same  
No matter who inquired, whether thin or short or fat  
He'd never tell a soul his name!_

_‘Is it Lyle? Is it Ezra? Is it Lou or Lars or Lee?  
Is it Anwir, Cain or Harvey - is it John?  
By some strange-ish concomitance - stroke of serendipity -  
Would it happen that your name is 'Dolion'?_

_Is it Ethan or Iago? Is it Preston; is it Dennis?  
Is it Dante, Dee or Markus - maybe Brody?  
Could it be, my slipp'ry fellow, that your real name is Horace?  
Or if you're feeling parabolic - is it Loki?_

_Lucifer or Icarus? Jekyll, Jam, or Julius?  
Thomas, Preston, Damien, or James?  
Declan, Steve or Dorian? Lionel or Lucius?  
There must be one! I'm running out of names!’_

_And he'd clasp both his hands with a maddening smile  
And he'd laugh and he'd laugh, then exclaim:  
‘I don't rightly understand! Why, how rude and downright vile -  
You should never ask a snake his name!’”_

The song is well-received. Of course it is; it’s a Roman Sanders original – never before performed, and it never will be ever again, seeing as it’s pretty outdated now that they _actually_ know Janus’s name. The kids, at the very least, appreciate it. They probably don’t understand very much of it at all, but they, like any sane human being, appreciate the novelty of a song that speeds up more and more with every new verse until it’s almost impossible to make out individual words.

The hat is passed around. Coins go clinking in, which speaks for itself for how much the paying adults appreciate it. Octavian laughs and exclaims, “So you _can_ sing!”

“You doubted me?” Roman says, and blows another kiss in Janus’s direction, because he seems torn between annoyance and, well, even more annoyance at Roman’s rather pointed song. Although Thomas does overcome his lethargy for a moment or two to let out a holler of appreciation and some weak applause. That’s something, at least.

“Are you really _that_ idiotic that you’ve somehow managed to forget my name _already?_ ” he hears Janus yell from across the square, but he ignores it, and turns back to his loving audience and fellow performers.

“Got anything else?” Heli asks, shimmying that tambourine up and down at a rapid tempo, which is an invitation if Roman’s ever heard it.

For the next half hour, they perform. Roman picks songs he knows won’t clash too dramatically with his current setting – some Disney songs, of course, an original he’s been working on about a battle between two pirate brothers (although it isn’t quite complete yet, but that doesn’t seem to matter right now), that one rowdy pub song from _Oliver_ – which Octavian and Heli manage to pick up on pretty quickly, after the first two choruses, and they have marvellous voices. Not as lovely as Roman’s, but they can sing and belt and harmonize with the best of them. And after half an hour of this, Roman’s genuinely sad to see it end.

Octavian calls a halt to proceedings after Janus waves at them pointedly and Roman mutters an apology. And the crowd disperses, in markedly cheerful spirits. Roman’s high on the thrill of performance, and he’s almost forgotten completely why he had been doing it in the first place – when Octavian comes over with the cap full of money and a performance-induced shine to him that mirrors how Roman feels.

“All yours,” he says, and passes the cap over to Roman, whose eyes widen.

“But some of this was already yours,” he says. “I couldn’t possibly – ”

“Don’t worry,” says Heli with a smile. “Money’s not really a problem for Octavian, and he helps me out. And you certainly earned all of that. Please do keep it.”

“...Thank you,” says Roman, and looks at her for a long, long moment. Her smile is... familiar. Something about the crinkle of her eyes and the curving of her lips. He can’t place it, but it’s _really_ familiar and to be perfectly honest it’s bugging him quite a lot. He had thought Thomas’s earlier comments about various people in the town to be a result of his less than coherent current state of mind, but maybe there’s something to them...

He scoops up the hat, and weighs it in a hand. It jingles pleasantly. “Is there any place where I might be able to obtain a horse?” he asks. “And preferably a cart or carriage of some sort, in the soon-ish time vicinity.”

“Oh,” says Heli, and trades glances with Octavian. “If you’re looking for transport... that’s almost certainly not going to be enough.”

“What?” Roman exclaims, and snaps his fingers angrily. “Ahh, son of a biiii… tchass motherfucking banshee! Monty Lie-thon over there’s never going to let me hear the end of this!”

“Well, I’m sure there’s an alternative...?” Heli says, sounding unsure. “Where was it you needed to get to, anyway?”

“We need to make our way up there,” Roman says, and points up, above the town – towards the mountain looming over it all.

“The Erlking’s castle?” Octavian asks, sounding genuinely startled for the first time. “Why in the name of _anything_ would you want to go up there? Especially at this time of year!”

“He’s taken something from our friend, and we’d be mildly overjoyed if he’d give it back,” says Janus as he comes over to join them, still scowling about the name song – accompanied by Thomas, who’s relying more on him to stay upright then not.

“Yeah, and, what – what’s so important about what time of year it is?” Thomas asks.

“It’s just about as complicated as he is,” says Octavian, and looks over at Heli – who’s been looking distinctly uncomfortable with the conversation ever since the castle had been brought up. “Go,” he says.

She hesitates. “Are you sure-?”

“I will be fine,” says Octavian. “But you might not be, so – you have no obligation to stick around or help.” He reaches over to the money-cap, and skims off a handful of shining coins with one hand, before presenting it to her. “I shouldn’t be more than a few days. Don’t worry about me, Heliotrope.”

“A few days?” says Roman, as Heli takes the coin and briefly embraces Octavian – who’s actually just a bit shorter than her – before hurrying off into the town. “What’s all that about?”

“You need transport up to the palace for what seems like a very important reason,” Octavian says, and adjusts his cape so it falls more neatly over his shoulders. “I have that transport, and I am not too unreasonably busy these days. It would be wrong of me not to extend an offer of help, my dear Prince. Especially after that performance of yours.”

“There are seven of us in total,” Janus points out, with narrowed eyes. It’s not hard to see that he very much does not trust this man, but at the very least he’s making an effort. Which is nice! And it’s nice that Janus’s being nice. “Will there be enough room for all of us?”

“I should think so, yes.”

“Uh, seriously, is nobody else worried about this,” Thomas says, and trails off. “This – this seems dangerous. I think. Where’s Logan? Someone check with Logan before you make any decisions, please?”

“We know,” Janus says very quietly into Thomas’s ear. “We’ll discuss it later. Don’t worry about it.”

Thomas blinks and then relaxes, leaning into Janus’s side. “Okay,” he agrees, and then, “But what’s the ‘time of year’ thing, at least?”

“Well, it _is_ autumn,” says Octavian, as if that explains everything. “Are you open to my suggestion, then?”

“Well, we do have an abundance of other ways to get up there,” Janus replies dryly.

“He means yes,” translates Roman. “And thank you. You’re very kind to offer this to us.”

Octavian of Kadath smiles. It is... an _insanely_ pretty smile. It’s completely wild how a human face can be that gorgeous while smiling. “In that case, I shall go collect my cart. Is there anywhere I can meet you and your companions once you’ve all found each other?”

“We were planning on meeting back at the town entrance,” says Roman, gesturing. Behind him, Janus makes a tiny noise of exasperated irritation.

“Excellent.” Octavian swings his lute over one shoulder, adjusting it neatly across his back. “In that case, I will see you all soon.”

“Thank you so much,” Thomas calls after his back, and then, to the others, “He seems nice!”

“He’s also really hot,” Roman points out, because it’s objectively true and it would be a crime if Thomas hadn’t noticed it by now.

Janus sighs. “Is now really the time?”

“Yes,” Thomas says, mouth twitching. “It’s always the time for pointless gay shenanigans; hadn’t you heard?”

“That’s our Thomas,” says Roman, bumping his shoulder, but Thomas seems distracted again – this time by Janus, as a matter of fact. “What? What is it?”

“Your face,” says Thomas, and makes as if to reach out and touch it, before jerking back abruptly. “What happened? It’s all wrong... I only just noticed.”

“Thank you for reminding me,” Janus says, voice dripping with sarcasm. He reaches up and touches the scales on his face himself, and some of the intricately drawn scales blend together under his touch, although Roman doesn’t think he knows it’s happening. “It’s – ” He coughs, and some veracity seems to bleed back into his voice. “ – I don’t know. I suspect it has something to do with your current lack of vitality, but... we’re all missing something.”

“Oh,” says Thomas, voice very small indeed, all of a sudden. “Sorry.”

“Don’t be,” says Roman. “You’re no doubt missing it just as much as we are. Even more, probably.”

“Let’s go find the others,” says Janus, looking majorly uncomfortable with the amount of sincerity currently present in the conversation, and they do.

They’re the last to arrive at the town entrance, actually – everybody else has already recongregated and appears to be exchanging findings.

“Hey there! We went on this entire adventure!” Patton says, the instant he sets eyes on their party of three – apparently eager to share. “We met a wizard named Jay – "

“And they were pretty cool, yeah,” Virgil interjects hurriedly. “But apart from the fact that everything’s expensive as _shit_ around here, we didn’t _really_ find out anything important. What about you guys?”

“Well, as I was saying – this town, and the surrounding villages and homes, appear to live life under a somewhat benevolent monarchy,” Logan explains. “It’s actually rather fascinating, but to cut a long story tragically short, if they don’t irritate or gather the attention of the fae court, they tend to leave them well enough alone.”

“Well done,” says Roman. “And in _less_ boring news, we have transport to the castle. _And_ spending money.”

“What,” says Logan. “Explain.”

They explain, and by the time Roman and Janus (with minimal help from Thomas) finish up, Virgil is frowning. “You just... talked to this stranger, and he offered to take us all up the mountain?”

“Well, I did a whole musical number first,” Roman says. “Which, as we all know, _does_ tend to bring people closer together.”

“Mm, yeah! True!” Remus agrees, through a mouthful of something suspiciously white and crunchy. He appears to be chewing on actual bones – it’s hard to tell if they’re animal or... something else. Roman wonders if he should say anything for a moment, and then decides that if Logan’s not pointing it out, it’s probably all right. Probably. “Remember that time I did that whole biblical allusion acid trip thing and then revealed my name to y’all?”

Thomas winces. “I try not to.”

Remus grins. There’s bone splinters all-too-visible between his teeth. “Just saying! If you had offered me a ride up a weird fairy mountain after all that, I’d’ve _totally_ accepted. No arguments at all!”

“...So, that makes absolutely no sense. Can we get back to the point?” Virgil pleads. “Princey, are you _sure_ this is a good idea?”

“He had a trustworthy sort of face,” Roman insists. “A really – trusty sort of face. The sort of face you can trust.”

“I think what Roman means to say is that Octavian of Kadath is objectively really fucking hot,” Janus says dryly. “And we as a society value looks over a lot of things, like how trustworthy a person actually is. _So._ ”

“Yes – actually, speaking of which, the suspension bridge effect – ” Logan begins.

“Nope. Not now,” Roman says, pointing at Logan, and then he rounds on Janus. “And _you._ This has nothing to do with how absurdly attractive he is. You’ve got the sort of face you _can’t_ trust, you – you liar!”

“Charming,” Janus rubs absently at the snaked-up side of his face. “Although it’s not like I agree with you or anything about the hotness. Just for the record.”

“We do all have the same taste in men,” Thomas says weakly. “So, you know. I don’t know why this is even a point of argument.”

The clip-clopping of two full sets of hooves heralds Octavian’s arrival, and effectively breaks off the conversation.

“Oh,” says Virgil unenthusiastically. “New stranger. Wonderful.”

“Identical stranger!” exclaims Octavian of Kadath, far more enthusiastic, from the large, mostly-empty cart that he’s perched on the front of. “Greetings!”

Introductions are exchanged. Remus makes a bunch of horrifyingly lewd comments, and Octavian just kind of rolls with it, god bless the guy.

Everyone piles into the cart, and Octavian takes the reins, cracking them briskly. The horses take off at a trot.

“So,” he says, glancing back at all of them. “Are you planning on explaining why the seven of you have exactly the same face, or is this going to be one of these things we all conveniently ignore for the duration of the trip?”

“It’s a long story,” Janus hedges.

“Except it’s totally not,” Remus says, and points at Thomas. “We’re all him! We all belong in his head but he bumped it on a magic rock or mushroom or something so now we all live out here forever, I guess!”

“I see,” says Octavian in a way that makes it clear that he doesn’t, not really.

“It _is_ a little more complicated than that,” says Logan. “But at this rate, I estimate it will take us a good few hours to reach the castle. So I do think we have enough time to explain it all.”

“In that case,” says Octavian. “I’m all ears. Tell me your tale, strange travellers.” He grins and loops the reins around one wrist. “I’ve been running out of songs to sing, anyway. Maybe you can give me some inspiration.”

*

The journey up the mountain is long and bumpy and, for the last hour, wholly unpleasant. The path gets steeper and narrower with every winding turn and the fact that their route affords them an excellent view of the town below (and how far down it is) is worrying for at least one of them. Virgil’s anxious teeth-grinding is both audible and extremely annoying, and there seem to be a lot more rocks and branches for the wheels to trip and skip and bump over.

They’ve explained the situation to Octavian, who’d had a lot of questions at first (of course), and then quite a few startled exclamations and declarations along the lines of ‘damn, that’s improbable’ (paraphrased), and then some clarifications on certain spellings and pronunciations. And then they had kind of separated off into smaller conversational groups, and at this point they’re all just trying to keep themselves occupied, and not let the dread of what they’re heading towards sink in. _Don’t let it sink in._

To keep Remus busy, Octavian’s been teaching him a few extremely raunchy call-and-response songs that sound like the sort of thing that Patton would object to on multiple levels, if Janus weren’t currently keeping him equally occupied with a frantic hushed discussion about what to do about the Erlking when they finally do end up meeting him.

It’s a short while after this – when they’ve all kind of descended into something that isn’t quite ‘pleasant silence’ but is as close as it’s possible to get, considering the circumstances – that Thomas stirs.

He’s been drifting back and forth between complete awareness – wherein he’s exactly like his usual self, conversing easily with everyone and cracking jokes where appropriate – and a state of glassy-eyed dissociation that it’s hard to rouse him from. There doesn’t really seem to be any real pattern to when or why this happens, although the periods of dull, drifting silence have been occurring more and more the closer they’ve gotten to the castle – a fact that hasn’t escaped the attention of any of them, but it’s not as if there’s really much they can do about it.

“I remember something,” he says quietly – so softly that Roman doesn’t actually register it’s him speaking for a moment, he just kind of assumes it’s Janus or Virgil or someone else. When he looks over, he sees that their source of being has a hand on Logan’s shoulder and is apparently addressing him in a hushed tone.

Thomas seems to be on the quieter end of ‘awake’ right now, which is probably a good sign. Roman casts a glance to where Octavian of Kadath is sitting, humming snippets of half put-together lyrics at the horses, and then shuffles back to join the conversation. “Something?” he says, lowering his tone to match Thomas’s. “Is this a plot-relevant sort of something?”

“We’re not in one of your weird fantasy daydreams, Princey,” says Virgil tiredly, from where he’s half-sprawled against one of the cart interior walls. “Plot relevancy and narrative conventions don’t apply to real life, remember?”

“Well,” says Patton. “We _are_ currently in a horse-drawn cart being driven by a bard to a castle carved into a mountain, so we can bargain with the king of the fairies for the return of our – uh, our Thomas’s... something. I’m not really sure what we’re doing, actually? But that seems pretty fantasy daydream-ish to me.”

“Well,” says Virgil, and then doesn’t say anything else.

“Thomas, you said you remembered something?” Logan asks, dragging the conversation back on track (and down to a lower register of volume).

Thomas blinks slowly, and then nods, propping himself up a bit on the side of the cart. “I’ve been here before,” he says. “I think. On this road, I mean. Except I think I was riding on a horse, with... someone.” His eyes go all distant and puzzled, and then he shakes himself and continues. “ _Anyway._ The important part is, the person I was with, they told me a bunch of things about this place that we’re in? A lot of it is super blurry and I just... can’t...” He shakes his head like a wet dog trying to dry its fur, and apparently the metaphorical fur doesn’t get dried by this action because he just looks even more frustrated. “Something about people and mirrors. Sorry, guys, it’s gone.”

_Mirrors_ is right, because the look of frustration on Logan’s face right now mirrors Thomas’s own perfectly.

“Not to worry,” says Janus, looking majorly unconvinced even as he says it. “I’m sure it’ll come back to you eventually.”

The cart rumbles on.

*

The horses have been nervous and skittish the closer they’ve gotten to the castle so far, so when Octavian pulls on the reins a brief while later, they stop so abruptly and suddenly that the cart jolts, sending everyone bumping forwards and sprawling against each other.

They’ve stopped a short distance from the actual gates of the mountainside castle – which are unimaginably big and carved from lengths of unbroken wood so tall that it’s almost like they’ve grown into place, rather than been constructed.

“To be clear,” says Octavian, hopping easily off the cart and gesturing for everyone else to do the same, “I will not be entering the castle with you. The King and I have... bad history.”

The seven of them slide off the back of the cart with assorted sighs of relief and discomfort that stem from having sat in the back of a moving horse-drawn vehicle for far too many hours on end. Octavian almost immediately starts coaxing the horses off the path and to a small outcropping of stone, where they’re hidden from view.

“I will, however, wait for you,” he adds, glancing over his shoulder. “You’ll need a ride back to town, if you should succeed. If you don’t return within two days, I shall assume you’ve died in a terrible fashion and leave without you.”

This last bit is said without the slightest hint of joking, which... really doesn’t bode well, come to think of it.

“Will you be all right out here?” Patton wonders. “There’s not a lot to do – and did you even bring enough food-?”

Octavian has set the horses grazing, and is already tugging out his lute. “To be honest, I’ve needed some peace and quiet for composing now. This is the perfect opportunity.”

“You have our deepest appreciation for bringing us all this way,” says Logan, adjusting his glasses slightly.

Octavian waves this off and strums at his strings thoughtfully. “It was no trouble. And you’ve given me more enough material to repay me – really, you have. Ah, before you go! What do you think of this?” A quick flurry of notes, punctuated by percussion as he taps his fingers against the wood of the fretboard, and he sings:

“ _Mr Sanders had six Sides who would not let him sleep  
__He'd been up to almost midnight, eyes shut tight and counting sheep_  
_At half past twelve he sat up - rubbed his eyes and shook his head –  
__‘That's it! I'm done! - exhausted! What is wrong with you?’ he said._ ”

“Very nice!” Roman enthuses as the music trails off and it becomes apparent that there’s no more of the song. “I approve greatly.”

Patton grins and claps obligingly. “Where’s it going from there?”

“No idea!” says Octavian cheerfully. “I’ll work that out later. But it’s something, isn’t it?”

“Could use some gore,” Remus suggests. “Just a smidge. Or twenty.”

“I’ll take that under consideration,” says Octavian indulgently, pulling out a tiny notebook from the inside of his cape. “Well, good luck to all of you, and good luck to me in finishing this ballad. And one final suggestion – do try not to give anyone in that castle your real name, if you can help it. All of you have been dreadfully cavalier with yours so far. I’d hate for something to happen as a result of it.”

“Now that’s advice I can get behind,” Janus says with a slight frown, and a glance at everyone else. “He’s right. Giving your name to the fae is a notoriously bad idea.”

“Well,” says Virgil as they wave goodbye to Octavian of Kadath and begin to head up the path towards the castle gates. “It’s not like that’s going to be a problem for you, _Deceit._ ”

“Okay, so I was overtly cautious about giving my name to strangers,” Janus says, tightening his ratty yellow scarf pointedly. “Can you blame me? I got there eventually.”

“To-? – _We are literally all the same person,_ ” Virgil exclaims.

Thomas takes the opportunity to frown slightly and then say, apropos of nothing and sounding more than a bit confused, “Hey. That song was about me.”

“Sure was, buddy,” Patton says, patting him tentatively on the shoulder – and then immediately having to grab him by the arm, because apparently that’s all it takes to send him toppling over. “Whoa there! You doing all right, kiddo?”

Thomas rights himself haltingly and says, “Yeah. I’m fine. There’s the castle – let’s go.”

The gates are even bigger up close. The carvings are intricate and astoundingly well-made, like thousands of individual strands of wood all braided into thick poles that look like they’d take centuries to saw through. Roman’s already putting himself down for at least five minutes of staring at this in wonder, but then Thomas bumps into him – pushing him aside so he can get to the front of the group. Quite rudely, too. He’s moving unassisted, which is something, at least.

Roman’s about to open his mouth and object to being rudely shoved aside anyway, but he’s pretty quickly cut off by the most concerning thing he’s heard all day.

“I belong here,” says Thomas quite firmly to nobody in particular, with an uncomfortably familiar glint of brightness in his eyes.

“ _Nope_ ,” says Virgil immediately, grabbing Thomas’s arm. “We are _not_ doing this again. Thomas, _we are leaving_ –” and a grating layer of distortion overtakes his voice for the last few words, which apparently startles him so much that his grip on Thomas slackens for just a few seconds. A few seconds too long, and at the worst possible moment too.

“Virgil! Your spooky voice! It’s back!” Patton says.

“ _Fuck my spooky voice,_ ” Virgil yells in his spooky voice, “ – _somebody grab Thomas!_ ”

Too late. Thomas is now right up next to the big towering gates, and he’s moving with a confidence and fluidity that he’s been sorely lacking this entire time. Roman lunges for him, and manages to grab his shoulders, but not before he gets a hand on the intricately carved wood of the gates – and that, apparently, is all it takes for them to start swinging open of their own accord.

Roman stands there, holding onto Thomas, staring at the otherworldly sight of the pathway leading up to the castle, which is _inordinately_ floral. It’s wreathed around on all sides by extravagant amounts of wild flowers and vines that are all growing to form a sort of tunnel in a way that could _not_ have possibly been naturally grown. And then there’s the tall willowy figure who’s standing at the end of the path, hands folded neatly behind his back – clothing so bright and flame-like that for a moment Roman thinks he’s actually on fire.

Virgil grabs Roman roughly around the waist and starts hauling him and Thomas backwards with a surprising amount of upper body strength. “No! No! No!” he yells. “We’re going! We’re leaving! We’re not fucking doing this, come _on_ – ”

Thomas jerks his way out of Roman’s grip with a smooth little twist of his shoulders. He’s already walking down the path with purpose, directly towards the tall figure waiting for him.

“Oh, _you’ve got to be kidding me,_ ” Virgil roars.

“Thomas!” Janus yells, and everybody else takes up the cry as they rush forward to stop their centre from doing something really stupid – which, yes, is pretty much par for the course for them, but usually the _stupid thing_ involves bulk-buying a whole bunch of worm-on-a-strings online for no good reason, and not _walking right towards an actual literal fairy._

Patton, surprisingly, is the fastest and therefore the first to get to the end of the path, but it’s still not fast enough, because even as he screeches to a halt, everyone close behind, Thomas is already right in front of the flame-robed man, and the man in question is radiating such unquestionable power and authority that it’s pretty clear that doing something like grabbing Thomas and dragging him back would be a really dreadful idea.

It’s also pretty clear to Roman who this guy is, going by the authority vibes and posture and the crown of gold and grass that encircles his long and exceptionally well-maintained hair. His robes are more feather and leaf than actual fabric. The bright oranges and reds of autumn encase his torso like a cocoon, spilling down to follow him on the ground in a silent trail. His eyes are blue as the ocean, and just as dangerous-looking.

He’s also _very_ hot. This is an extraordinarily unhelpful fact, considering the situation, but it doesn’t make it any less true.

“Welcome back, Thomas Sanders,” says the Erlking with a grin in his voice, although the expression on his face doesn’t move in the least, remaining impassive and cold. He raises a hand to Thomas’s cheek, and there’s an unmistakable tenderness there that nonetheless is so essentially _wrong_ that Roman feels like he could choke on it. Thomas is staring up at him with a kind of fascinated rapture – his eyes bright and glazed, like he’s seeing without actually seeing.

“ _Let him go_ ,” Virgil snaps, taking advantage of his newly returned voice for the Spook Factor, although it doesn’t seem to have much effect at all.

“But he’s mine,” says the Erlking, sounding genuinely surprised.

“Falsehood,” replies Logan. It’s not whip-fast or razor-sharp. His voice shakes and so do his hands, although they’re firmly clasped behind his back. “Thomas belongs to _nobody_ and _no-one._ ”

“Everyone belongs to someone, somewhere,” says the Erlking. “Most people belong to themselves, without ever being aware of it. My dear Thomas belonged to himself until he unwittingly signed his heart and body away, and now he belongs to me and one other.”

“What? Explain!” demands Roman. “He... _belongs_ to you? You and who else?”

“Mm,” says the Erlking, and caresses the side of Thomas’s head, long fingers tangling and catching in the knots in his hair. “I would not normally be so amenable to sharing someone so very pretty, but needs must.” He sighs, the sound drawn out and pleased. “Ah... Thomas?”

“Yeah?” says Thomas, sounding dreamy and utterly lost in thought.

“Do stay with me a while longer, won’t you? No more running off. It isn’t good for me, or for you.”

“Yeah,” says Thomas with a breathless grin.

“That is precisely what I like to hear.” The Erlking leans down, and presses a precise kiss to Thomas’s forehead.

For a second, there’s a flash of clarity in Thomas’s eyes, and he says, “Wait, no – ”, but then he just. _Collapses._ He goes down smooth and slow, sinking down to the ground and toppling over and curling up into himself. And then he’s just lying there, still and unmoving at the Erlking’s feet – cushioned by the unnaturally green grass and moss all around him.

Remus lets out an unholy noise, and _charges_. There doesn’t appear to be much thought behind the attack, which isn’t all that surprising. He swerves around Thomas’s fallen form, and throws himself bodily at the Erlking, all furious elbows and fists and nails, apparently determined to tear the fairy king limb-from-limb with his bare hands. But Roman _blinks_ and suddenly his brother isn’t anywhere close to the Erlking anymore, although the king himself hasn’t moved in the slightest.

“Dispense with these foolish attacks,” orders the Erlking, although he sounds faintly amused. “You cannot lay a hand on me.”

“How dare you,” snaps Roman, so angry he can barely force the words out. “How – how _dare_ you. Give him back.”

The Erlking just stares at him quizzically, like he just... doesn’t understand. Like he’s incapable of understanding the simple truth, that _Thomas_ is not property for him to _own_ and _keep_ and actually the whole thing is blatantly ridiculous because _they are all him_ and of _course_ they’re his and he’s theirs, what even is _any_ of this –

Roman _seethes._ He glances back to see what everyone else is doing, to see if anyone’s making a move or _anything,_ and this is why he sees the exact moment when Logan makes eye contact with the Erlking. This probably wouldn’t be such a notable thing, because _all_ of them are glaring at him right now, but for some reason, the Erlking meets his gaze evenly – and with something that isn’t just amusement or indifference in the expression. Something like _understanding_ actually seems to pass between the two of them for a moment.

And then Logan gasps. Although calling it that feels almost inadequate, because it sounds less like a gasp and more like an earth-shattering realization condensed into vocal form.

The Erlking jerks his head sideways, breaking it off. He makes a short, violent movement with one hand, and the ground around Thomas erupts into life, a nature documentary in a hundred-times-speed as the grass and flowers grow up to envelop him – dragging him down into the dirt before withering and dying once more. It takes less than five seconds, and when it’s done, Thomas is nowhere to be seen.

Patton screams. Virgil lets out a growl that’s less earth-shaky and nightmarish than usual but still pretty demonic all the same.

“No need for dramatics,” says the Erlking, despite the fact that he’s _probably the most dramatic person here,_ and that’s really saying something. “He is within my palace now – unharmed. I simply need him where I can keep my attention firmly fixed on him. He is rather important to me, you know.”

“I’ll kill you, you know,” says Remus cheerfully. “Rip you limb from limb, use your sparkly fairy blood as fingerpaints, twist your sexy skinny wrists around and around and around until they snap and snap and snap again, do the same to your neck, use you as fertilizer for your own fucking fantasy fairytale garden – ”

“Now, that,” the Erlking replies, “would be a distinct honor. What a shame your threats will not come to pass today. Do feel free to come in,” he adds to the group as a whole, raising an arm to indicate the palace up ahead. “I expect you’ll want to talk with me, and allowing that is only polite, after all. Join me in my garden.”

And this is apparently the end of _that_ particular conversation, because he just straight-up turns on his heel and starts walking back down the grassy path – back to the great oak doors that grow out of the mountain itself. He doesn’t appear to be moving at much faster than a casual meander, but within seconds he’s already halfway there.

Patton takes off at something that’s not quite a dead sprint, but it’s pretty close. Janus is right behind, as are Virgil and Remus – and Roman, for the first few steps. But Logan stays frozen where he is. Still and wide-eyed, a glasses-wearing deer caught in headlights.

Roman stops when he realizes that Logan’s not following, and turns to hurry back to him. “What’s going on, Specs?” He peers at Logan worriedly, and presses a hand to his arm. “I know he’s pretty intimidating, but I bet I can talk him into giving Thomas back. Or Janus can, you know how he is. Fairies love deals. We can work something out, we always do. Specs? Logan? Lo – hey, are you all right?”

Logan doesn’t even appear to hear him. “Roman,” he breathes, eyes fixed on the Erlking’s retreating back. He’s paler than a glass of skim milk with a penchant for blithely cooking vegetables without spices, and Roman can feel him trembling slightly. “Roman, you don’t understand – that’s _me._ ”


	6. logan (i)

Oh, Logan hates himself. He really, truly does.

The thing is. The thing is, _it makes sense._ It makes an uncomfortable amount of sense, because Octavian of Kadath had been strangely familiar and so had the tollperson, Shane D’Arc. And that’s not to mention the twenty-or-so people that he and Remus had passed and encountered briefly while exploring that town, all of whom had made some distant part of his awareness uncomfortable and suspicious in a way he couldn’t quite place at the time. But looking right at the Erlking like that, and seeing the awareness reflected back from a consciousness so different and yet so horribly familiar – it had made the truth entirely obvious.

But the thing is, it _doesn’t_ make sense. They look _nothing_ alike and there’s not even a name etymology connection here – it’s not as if ‘Logan’ has any Germanic history to it, quite the opposite – and this Erlking has _taken Thomas_ and is claiming ownership of him in an _entirely_ illogical and irrational way, and they just _can’t_ be the same person –

He had attempted to explain his reasoning to Roman, very calmly and clearly, but it didn’t seem to have gotten through to him in the slightest. Roman had nodded along through the first ten seconds of explanation, and then said, “Specs, you know I love you, but we do _not_ have time for this, and really it’s probably not as important as _catching up to the fairy king who’s stolen our Centre,_ so hurry up let’s _go_ ,” and that had been the end of that attempt. Even though Logan’s still reeling, trying to piece it all together in his mind, and his headache is rising and he kind of wants to scream or else make some kind of exclamatory noise to suitably vent his frustration in himself and the world around him. And the Erlking. _Especially_ the Erlking.

He had let Roman drag him forward through the open castle gates and towards the rest of the group, who are, in turn, hurrying as fast as they can in the wake of the Erlking, who’s sweeping through the halls with all of the confidence and certainty that comes with him owning the place. In any other circumstances, he’d be fascinated and possibly quite distracted by the rather stunning architectural design of the castle itself – the hallways are vast stone caverns that appear to be hollowed out entirely naturally, although the complexity of said hollowing indicates otherwise. And then there’s the clear pan-European Baroque inspirations working behind quite a bit of it, which is as fascinating as it is puzzling, because all evidence would suggest that this world that they’ve found themselves in would date to a somewhat anachronistic version of the mid-sixteenth century, rather the early seventeenth-century time period Baroque architecture would typically hail from. But he’s not thinking about any of that. Because there are far more important things to consider.

The Erlking is leading them down a series of long twisting paths that don’t seem to ever intersect at right angles and also don’t seem to obey the laws of physics or space and placement in general. Either they’re going around in circles at a very subtle incline that Logan hasn’t been able to perceive, or the geography of this mountain palace is actually changing as they walk through it.

There are other fae in the hallways – or, at least, it can be reasonably assumed that they _are_ fae, considering the appropriate context clues. Some of them are humanoid enough in appearance, but others are distinctly animalistic, incorporating features from creatures such as bears and possums and various brightly-colored avian species in their corporeal forms. Others still appear only as faint, hazy streaks of light that orbit other creatures lazily or drift through the rooms and halls at irregular paces. All of these beings seem to pause momentarily to regard their group as they pass by, but none of them engage – perhaps because the Erlking is there and is cutting a very imposing figure indeed.

“The first thing we need to do is – ” Logan begins, but is cut off because everybody else has opinions that they want to share at the exact same time as him, and now that he’s begun to express his own, they seem to have taken it as a signal to do the same.

“We need to get Thomas back,” Virgil says. “And guys, _keep it down._ He might hear us.”

“He can hear us anyway,” growls Janus, who is still maintaining a glare that promises violence directly at the Erlking’s back. “He’s pretending not to.”

“How did we lose an entire Thomas?” Patton whispers, distraught. “ _Again?_ ”

“The first thing we need to do,” says Logan in a harsh whisper, clenching his hands into fists and tucking them firmly behind his back so nobody can see how horrendously emotional he’s getting, “is figure out what _we_ have that he wants. We need a position to bargain from.”

“We have nothing that he wants,” Janus says with a slight angry hiss to the end of the sentence that he barely seems to notice himself. “Our best plan at this point is skipping the bargaining entirely, finding Thomas somehow, and breaking him out.”

“Or, I could fuck the Erlking,” Remus offers. “I bet he’d want that.”

Logan would usually dismiss this as one of his usual wildly unhelpful interjections, but Remus really does seem quite serious about it. He stops walking for a split second, processing this, and then says, as genuinely as he can under this amount of stress, “Thank you, Remus. But I hope that won’t be necessary. Let’s put a metaphorical pin in that and come back to it later, all right?”

“Just as long as you know the offer’s there,” says Remus.

They resume walking.

“Okay, much as I hate to admit it, but Janus has a point.” The growl in Virgil’s voice has faded from his voice but he still sounds tense and on-edge and in serious need of a break and some breathing exercises that Logan is too preoccupied to provide. “What _do_ we have that he wants?”

Logan wants to open his mouth and have an answer for him, but nothing’s there. This situation is dangerously close to spiralling out of control. He is so incredibly out of his depth that he’s amazed nobody else has seen and commented on it yet. Although perhaps that’s just because they’re all stuck in the same situation.

There are another set of doors up ahead, and a lot less fae beings lurking around them. The Erlking throws up one hand, and the doors slam open immediately, perfectly on cue, and strides forth to enter the room – which turns out to be not so much a room as a garden. It’s open to the air and bordered only by arches of wood and vines. And, empirically speaking, it’s so much more impressive than the ‘garden’ surrounding the mountain palace had been on every conceivable level. The grass is as green as a perfectly oxidized chromium oxide. There are flowers _everywhere_ , enough to make any botanist weep for the sheer quantity and assortment of them, and the heady perfume just about knocks Logan back physically the moment he tries to step in. Patton sneezes and mutters a quick apology, but quite frankly that’s the least of their concerns right now.

They all file in. The light-streak fae are everywhere in here; zipping from tree to bush, vine to throne, carrying out inscrutable little tasks. A couple of them circle around the Erlking as he enters, vibrating and humming gently, but he brushes them all aside. He strides forth to the centre of the room. There, a tangle of strategically bent branches spout upwards from the earth, covered in moss and petals, and forming what appears to be some sort of naturally-grown throne.

“We want Thomas back,” declares Logan, getting right to the point, “and we’re willing to negotiate for his return.”

“But you have nothing that I want,” the Erlking points out, although he seems relaxed and calm, as if he’d been expecting this entirely. Of course he’s been expecting it; it’s exactly the sort of thing that Logan would expect, in his place. “Why should I be expected to give you what you desire when there’s nothing you could conceivably offer in return?”

“You can have me,” Patton blurts.

There is a moment of absolute silence, and then a lot of people start objecting very loudly at once, but the Erlking waves his hand at all of them in such a genuinely threatening manner that those objections die down pretty quickly.

“What would I want with you?” says the Erlking, seeming genuinely interested in the answer. “You’re not even a full person in your own right. You’re only a fragment of a whole.”

“Well, whole-y moley, that’s kinda harsh,” Patton says and lets out a burst of nervous laughter. “I mean, _uh._ What I was gonna say is, you’d definitely want me, because I _am_ Thomas’s heart.”

“Metaphorically,” Logan can’t help muttering. Virgil steps on his foot.

“And I remember you were talking earlier about not having that heart of his, and I figured that if you wanted it so badly...” He raises both hands, wiggles his fingers, and beams, although his grin is slightly wilted. “...I’m Morality. Hello!”

“What use is the heart without the whole?” asks the Erlking, looking suddenly disinterested – although Logan suspects it’s more of an affectation than his true feelings on the matter.

“And what good is the whole without the heart?” Roman snaps back. “Look, like it or not, the Thomas that you’ve got right now is incomplete. You need him, for whatever reason? You’re going to need _us,_ too _,_ because we _are_ him – and we’re what makes him whole.”

“To be perfectly honest,” says the Erlking, “I don’t need him. And I don’t need you. At least, not specifically and not entirely. All I need is a soul.” He eyes them, and that hint of darkly playful amusement is back. “Would you say that any of you have a soul?”

There’s no response for a long, long moment. Mainly because that’s a question that none of them have an immediate answer to. Because they don’t know.

The concept of _souls_ existing is... under hot debate. Thomas himself does believe in the concept, Logan knows that, but he himself is understandably rather sceptical of it. Not enough that he’d voice it and cause Thomas to suffer cognitive dissonance between his values and logic, it’s not important enough of a scientific concern, but it’s always been sitting in the back of his mind quietly, waiting to be dusted off for discussion.

And now Logan is thinking about the Socratic concept of _soul._ The trifold model – _logos, thymos, eros_ ; head, heart, desire. He’s thinking about the Aristotelian model, and wondering if all of them are accurate enough mirrors of Thomas himself to be considered fully actualized rational souls or maybe one soul all together. He’s thinking about the Hillman theory and about the Aquinasian model, and about Kant’s congruency between _soul_ and _I_. He’s wondering if souls are real here, or anywhere else, or if it’s one of them or several of them or all of them or _none_ of them that make up Thomas’s essence. If you were to take all of them away, what would be left? Would there be anything left?

Logan takes a deep breath, and steps up so he’s even with Patton. “Mind and heart, then,” he says. “I am Logic, and I’m willing to gamble myself for this cause.” _What do I have to lose, after all?_

“Interesting,” muses the Erlking, pressing a finger to his lower lip. “But it seems as if there’s something missing. Mind and heart don’t make up an _entire_ soul, after all.”

“I am Passion,” Roman announces, sweeping forwards to join the other two. “Without a healthy dose of that, _any_ soul would be in trouble.”

“And make that double!” Remus adds, joining the line with a hop and a skip. “Passion Part Two: Electric Boogaloo! Is that enough soul for you, Dark Souls Tree? Or do you need more of us for the meat grinder?”

“Well, I don’t know,” says the Erlking, and looks over at the two that haven’t volunteered themselves up yet. “Do I?”

Virgil hesitates. It’s extremely visible and almost painful to watch – he’s obviously torn between common sense and the knowledge that a failure to commit to this may just result in inevitable catastrophe.

“Fine,” he says, obviously extremely uncomfortable. “Anxiety. That’s me, that’s what I do. I’m in, if you even want that.”

He doesn’t make a move to step forwards to join the others, though.

“And you?”

\- which is of course directed at Janus, at the very back of the room, who’s standing with crossed arms and a carefully blank expression on his face. At this, he looks up and offers a tiny, awful little twist of a smile. “I’m only Self-Preservation. You certainly don’t want _me_ involved.”

“I can’t help but feel that’s not the entire truth,” says the Erlking. “Surely there’s more to you than that.”

“Oh, believe me, I wouldn’t lie in a situation like this,” comes the dry response. “No, I think I’ll stay out of this, thank you very much. I’d say that five out of six is more than good enough for you. Take the deal, Erlking.”

There’s a very charged moment where Logan has absolutely no idea what’s going to happen next and is more than slightly dreading it.

Then the Erlking laughs; a short bark of amusement like a single staccato note, and says, “Five out of six. Well, I don’t see why not. A deal, then. You have until tonight’s banquet ends – six hours, that is; no more, no less. If you can find and wake your friend by then, and if he can attend the banquet of open eye and conscious mind, then you may take him with you when you depart. If not...” He shrugs, open and languid. “I get you _and_ him. Which seems to be the optimal ending for me, if what you’ve told me is true.”

“We accept,” says Roman instantly, and Logan tries not to sigh too loudly. Janus does nothing to muffle his own sigh of exasperation – but there’s nothing to be done, now. Logan doesn’t have his vocabulary cards with him, so he’s unsure of the exact phrase, but he’s moderately sure it goes somewhat along the lines of ‘in for a cent, in for a slightly more extravagant unit of currency’.

“You have free reign of the palace, of course,” the Erlking adds. “And the banquet begins at sundown in my personal quarters, so do be sure not to arrive late.” A smile that sets Logan’s teeth on edge. “You are dismissed.”

“Very kind of you,” Janus says, because nobody else seems up to voicing anything, and then grabs Virgil by one arm and Remus by the other and starts dragging them out. By the expression on his face, however subtle it may be, Logan surmises that if he had any more hands on hand right now, he’d be doing the same for the rest of them. As it is, Logan is the one who takes up the task of dragging Roman and Patton out, because at least one of them looks frankly murderous right now, and he’s actually rather surprised which one it is.

“Every person of significance that we have met so far in this world is a reflection of one of us, or someone that we know,” Logan says, as soon as the door is shut behind them and they’re standing in the notably empty and silent hallway just outside of the Erlking’s garden.

The short silence that follows is genuinely maddening, because he can tell they don’t understand. And it’s the first time he’s had a chance to voice this properly since his realization to all of them together, so it makes it even worse because they all seem to be _listening_ , and yet –

“What,” says Janus. It’s not really disbelief in his tone, just flat incomprehension. Which might be worse.

“Shane Sine D’Arc,” Logan says, trying to force himself to speak evenly and clearly without all the words just spilling out in an incoherent mess. “‘Shane’ is an alternate of the name ‘Joan’, I’d guess that _Sine_ is the same, and I shouldn’t have to spell out what the last name is an allusion to.”

“Wait,” says Patton. “So you’re saying... that... was Joan?”

“No,” says Logan. “At least, not entirely. _Octavian_. One of the lesser-known names of one of the greatest _Roman_ emperors ever known.” A beat, as he looks around incredulously, waiting for everyone else to catch up. “He’s a _bard,_ for god’s sake.”

“What? Wait _,_ ” Virgil says, eyes widening in realization. “Oh man, _nice –_ Princey has a crush on himself!”

“Yes, and?” Roman snaps back without shame. “A healthy amount of self-love is good for the soul!”

“That’s... _weird,_ ” Patton says. “Really weird. Weirder than usual, actually. Are you sure you’re just not... you know, making things up? Because of the weirdness?”

“I do not just _make things up,_ ” Logan retorts sharply.

“Thomas did mention something about people and mirrors,” Janus points out with a little frown. “This could be what he was referring to.”

“That was the conclusion that I had come to, yes,” Logan agrees, relieved that he seems to be making at least some semblance of sense. The act of corroboration in itself is immensely reassuring for some reason he can’t place.

“Oh, of _course,_ ” Roman says, snapping his fingers twice and then pointing at Janus. “The lady back in town – Heli! I knew she reminded me of someone – that was Valerie!”

“Heli, diminutive of _heliotrope,_ alternative name of the plant known as Valerian,” Logan mutters, the connections coming lighting-fast. “I believe Remus and I met Camden’s equivalent – and Patton, you mentioned a – a, _wizard?_ ”

“Talyn,” Virgil says, biting his lip. “Jays, birds, talons, it makes sense. They had the hair for it, anyway.”

“Okay, so where are the rest of us, then?” Remus demands eagerly. “I want to meet my reflection. Bet he’s hotter than yours.”

Logan thinks about the Erlking and his dreadful knowing eyes and the way that his hand had looked, cupped around Thomas’s face, and for a moment he really can’t say anything at all. And then he clears his throat, and manages to say, “No, I think we’d have noticed anyone resembling you by now. As for the rest of us – ” His throat briefly closes up again and he lets out a growl of a cough to force himself to keep going. Now is not the time to start freezing up. “ – I believe I can pretty conclusively state that we _have_ met my fantasy double by this point.”

“The Erlking, of course,” Roman says, looking faintly horrified.

“Jesus Christ on a pogo stick getting fucked with a decoratively carved pineapple.” Remus lets out a low whistle, shaking his head. “You have _rotten_ luck. At least Roman’s double knows catchy songs – you ended up with a possessive fairy stalker with a flower fetish! Wonder what that says about you?”

“Thank you,” forces out Logan through gritted teeth. “I am _wildly_ aware of the situation as it stands.”

Janus leans against a wall, crossing his arms. “As interesting as this alternate-us business is – is it really all that useful to us right now? Our current goal is getting Thomas back.”

Logan sighs, and tries to fight back the surprisingly real headache that’s forming already through sheer willpower alone. It’s difficult. Especially since every headache he’s experienced up until now has been purely conceptual in form.

Being separated from Thomas like this is... wrong. Logan doesn’t know if anyone else is feeling the effects quite to the extent that he is, but with every passing minute he’s becoming more and more aware of the body that he’s inhabiting. Of the muscles and bones and skin and arteries and veins and _flesh_ making it up, and how they’re functioning. Of how he actually needs to breathe to survive instead of just as an affectation. The metaphorical Schrodinger’s Box has been peeked into, and the universe is suddenly paying a lot more attention to how he functions, and he’s incredibly afraid that he might not be able to keep up.

“Yes,” he says. “Yes, you’re – probably right. My apologies. I felt like that needed to be shared, but perhaps now was not the time.” He takes the shortest possible moment of time to collect himself. “Let’s go find Thomas.”

“Just like that?” Virgil asks, with a raised eyebrow. He’s tugging his hoodie around himself so tightly at this point that Logan’s surprised it hasn’t ripped under the strain yet. “No plan, no calculations?”

“I suspect both would be pointless.” Logan shrugs. “Plans can wait until we’ve found him. First things first, after all.”

“Let’s just... not split up this time,” Roman suggests carefully. “Fairy palaces are really not a great place to do that.”

Splitting up is generally agreed upon to be a pretty bad idea, so they set off down the hallway, trying every door in sight. And all of them are locked firmly, and no amount of rattling and shoving budges them. They make it through approximately thirty doors before Roman suggests that they go back and ask Octavian for advice – mirror-shenanigans aside, he _did_ seem to be quite knowledgeable about the Erlking and fairies in general. But, upon going back, they quickly discover that the great oak doors that they had entered from are just as locked, and equally unwilling to budge.

“This has to be against the rules.” Virgil delivers a vicious kick to the door, and it doesn’t help matters in the least. “He doesn’t own _us._ He can’t just keep us here!”

Patton tries asking some of the friendlier-looking fae for directions to the guest quarters, but every one of them turns away, unspeaking. It’s very probable that they’ve been ordered by their king not to interact, in case they accidentally or purposefully give some clue or hint to how to free Thomas. With no help from that avenue, they’re forced to press on deeper into the mountain palace.

It becomes less sunny and far more mossy as they continue on. The vegetation loses none of its vibrant verdancy, but it’s now clinging to walls in patterned patches that are glowing with an uncanny bioluminescence.

They keep trying the doors, and as they reach a stretch of empty corridor where no other people are present, the doors actually start opening. Not that it’s of much help; the rooms they open onto are bare and empty, containing little furnishing and no occupants – a bed and a few chairs, at most. Sometimes there’s a window that’s more like a slit, looking out onto the town from the mountain and letting in a small sliver of sunlight from outside. Some of the beds look like they’ve been recently occupied, judging by the ruffled sheets, but there’s a thin layer of dust that coats quite a lot of them.

“Do you think fairies sleep?” Patton wonders after seven of these rooms.

“Well, I’m pretty sure they fuck,” Remus replies. “Like, historically speaking. Fairies _love_ seducing people, taking lovers from the mortal realm - ”

“You don’t need a bed for that,” Janus points out, and looks like he’s instantly regretting it, because a shit-eating smile creeps across Remus’s face.

“That’s true,” Logan says, cutting off the inevitable tangent. “But if you’re a fairy with a penchant for taking human lovers, I suspect that you _do_ need accommodations for the mortals you kidnap.”

Roman, who’s already moved on to the next door, opens it and immediately lets out a yell of combined shock and triumph, and practically throws himself through it.

“ _You found him?_ ” Janus’s already moving faster than Logan ever could have imagined him moving. He’s not alone, because there’s momentarily a five-Side pile-up in the doorway to this new room as everybody, sans Roman, tries to cram themselves through it at once. This is resolved with a lot of yelling and complaining, and then they’re in and they’re staring at who they’ve found.

“We found him,” Patton says.

“I found him,” Roman corrects.

“...You found him, and he’s asleep,” says Virgil. “ _Again._ ”

The room has one remarkably extravagant four-poster bed situated right in the middle of the room, quite a lot of furniture and what looks to be a walk-in closet on the far wall. It’s actually quite a lot more furnished than the rest of the rooms they’ve seen. There’s a few rocks and coins on the bedside table and books on the shelves, and it almost looks lived-in. But all of this barely catches Logan’s attention, because the most important person in the universe is there on the bed, and _oh, Thomas._

He’s covered in flowers and moss and he’s in another one of those silky gowns that he had been wearing when he had stumbled back to his house, the previous night – or is it the same day, still? It’s hard to tell. This one’s pearly-white, shimmering in strange colors when the light glances off it. He’s half-curled up on his side, breathing peacefully – grass sprouting from the mattress and in-between his fingers; daisies growing around his folded arms and vines creeping up around his neck, with roses blooming in his hair. He looks strangely radiant, caught in the sole, thready ray of golden sunlight glinting in from beyond the mountain.

“As much as I hate to point it out when Roman’s right here to do it for us,” Janus says, “this is all very Sleeping Beauty, isn’t it?”

Roman visibly starts, and then shakes his head, apparently clearing it. “Yes. Yes! You’re right – so, maybe the solution is kissing him?”

“We’re not going to kiss a sleeping person, Roman,” says Virgil, glaring at him. “As previously established, _that’s really fucking creepy_.”

“And also entirely too easy,” Logan says. “I doubt we would have been allowed to so much as venture close to Thomas’s room if the solution was as easy as _kissing him awake._ ”

“Maybe,” says Roman. “But nothing ventured, nothing gained – so...” He leans over the bed, brushing aside a blooming rose that’s in his way, and presses a kiss to Thomas’s forehead, and then – after a second – another, quicker to the lips. Nothing happens. Thomas doesn’t even so much as flinch.

“Try using tongue,” Remus suggests.

Roman does not. He takes a seat on the bed, right next to Thomas, and starts frowning extremely hard, looking like he’s trying to remember something.

“There’s got to be _other_ fairy tale stories that involve waking people up from comas,” says Virgil, also sitting down on the bed. “Right?”

“Well, there’s _The Snow Queen,_ ” starts Roman, and then shakes his head – “no, wait, that also involves kissing. _Drat._ ”

“Why are fairy tales so fixated on kisses being the solution?” Patton wonders. “Why can’t it be, I don’t know – a nice hug, for once?”

“Yes, I’m sure hugging Thomas will be the solution to all of our problems,” Janus deadpans.

“I’ll give it a try, anyway,” Patton decides, and does.

Unsurprisingly, it doesn’t have any effect at all, apart from Patton getting a faceful of flowering herbs that makes him sneeze for a full minute.

By this point, Janus has made his way around the entire room – apparently searching it for anything worth seeing – and is now approaching that side-door that they’ve all been ignoring up until now. Remus is working his fingers into the crack that serves as a window, apparently trying to see if he can widen it (very unlikely) or else catch his fingers in it and twist them in some sickeningly wrong way. But upon seeing Janus nudge the side-door open, he pulls away abruptly and comes bounding over to see what’s going on.

Inside are a large number of elaborately crafted formal outfits of every color and cloth and style. They also all happen to be exactly the same size, and there is an almost perfect chance that it is, in fact, _their_ size.

Remus dives for the green clothes immediately and without hesitation, tearing a number of them off their hangings. He starts stripping. Also immediately and without hesitation.

“Oh,” says Virgil, from the bed, “oh, so we’re all going to go and accept the fairy clothes now, are we? That sounds like an amazing way to get, you know, _strangled by our own tuxedos._ ”

“I think the clothes may be the least of our worries at this point,” Janus points out, although he’s giving the closet a look of suspicion. 

“There’s probably no harm in, you know – dressing up a little,” says Roman. He’s eyeing the closet, and in particular one long robe with a fur-trimmed gold-lined cape, with something like longing in his eyes.

“I suppose our current states of attire are... perhaps a bit too casual for a fairy banquet,” Logan allows, and then sighs. “But not now. We need to focus on Thomas. If we can’t get him awake, then attending it is somewhat pointless.”

“We have until sundown, so...” Janus peers out of the crack, judging the position of the sun. “...a few hours. Maybe one and a half, depending.” He looks back at everyone else. “Any clever ideas, then? Seeing as we _do_ seem to be on a bit of a deadline.”

There is a distinct lack of replies to this.

“We can try a lot of different things to wake him up until then,” suggests Patton. “Like... I don’t know, pouring water on him or something. Can we find water? There’s got to be water around here somewhere.”

Janus does, in fact, have water in his bag, as well as a lot of other potentially useful items. There is initial intense wave of activity from the entire group as they attempt just about every possible method of waking someone up – pinching, shaking, stabbing (very lightly and _with a pencil_ , it’s _fine_ , they don’t let Remus go too overboard with that anyway), water and holding his nose – nothing.

When they try to pull him from the bed, to see if getting him on the cold stone floor will do any good, the flowers and vines surrounding him actively fight back – pulling him back into place and holding him down, no matter how hard they try hacking at the plants with their limited supplies.

“This is ridiculous,” Janus huffs, stumbling backwards from yet another failed attempt at getting the assorted botanical bondage off their source. He turns to Roman and Remus, prying several thorns out of the skin of his hands. “Can’t you two do something – swords or knives would be helpful, you know!”

“Can’t _you_ try summoning some extra hands to give us a – well, hand?” Roman retorts. “Oh, wait, you _can’t_ , because none of us can do _shit_ right now!”

“What he said! Here, let me summon some fucks,” Remus adds, and then waves his empty hands in the air. “Would you look at that! None! I am out of fucks! And also knives!”

“That doesn’t explain Virgil,” Logan says quietly, and when everyone turns to look at him, nods at the Side in question. “Your voice. You could use your distortion amplification earlier, which definitely isn’t a human trait. Can you still do that?”

“Well, I mean, I _am pretty stressed right now,_ ” Virgil says, and the distorted undertones kick in halfway through, making everyone jump. He acquires a thoughtful expression, and then looks at Thomas. “ _You left your gas stove on,_ ” he growls in his most threatening, urgent tone.

No reaction – from Thomas, at least. Logan frowns, something occurring to him. “Actually, did we ever turn the stove off?”

“Oh fuck.” Virgil’s eyes go wide. “ _Did_ we? I can’t remember. I don’t think we did.”

“Never mind that,” Janus says, and flicks his tongue out experimentally. There’s nothing unusual about it in the least, and he’s already scowling. “Why is it, I wonder, that you’re the only one of us whose abilities are still functioning more or less as they should be?”

“If you’re accusing me of something,” Virgil begins, already drawing himself up indignantly.

“No,” Janus says hurriedly, “no, I wasn’t – sorry. If I’m not paying attention, all of my rhetorical questions end up sounding evil and ominous. I should work on that.”

“Oh,” says Virgil.

“I’ll be sure to add that to the list of questions I have about this place,” Logan says, who does in fact have a rather extensive mental list of questions already. “For now, let’s keep trying to wake up Thomas. I’m sure there’s something we haven’t thought of yet.”

Hours pass. The sun, outside, lowers further and further until it’s setting right at the horizon, in line with the river they’d arrived on; and the moss on the walls is starting to glow with a warm yellow light, keeping the room illuminated. Although the only thing it’s really succeeding in illuminating right now is everyone’s lack of productivity and immense frustration. Many ideas have dwindled down into no ideas at all, and mostly they’re just all sitting around the room, frowning and grimacing at the walls and each other.

Remus is sprawled across the sheets of the bed, tugging none-too-gently at the many knots in Thomas’s hair, while Patton is curled up next to him, half-wrapped around him and looking downright miserable. Virgil’s flicking through the outfits in the cupboard with a scowl on his face, and Roman’s pacing angrily, and Janus and Logan are just sitting there, thinking.

Well, _Logan’s_ thinking, at least. It can be extrapolated and safely assumed that Janus is probably thinking as well, but probably not as hard as Logan is – because, you see, Logan’s trying to come up with a plan. An exceedingly clever plan that will get them all out of this mess – safe, healthy and preferably with no strange fairy enchantments or curses in the mix. It’s tough work, but someone’s got to do it. And although there’s nothing solid yet, he can feel the plan coming – as if it’s some essential fact, just on the tip of his tongue. Waiting for the right catalyst to set off a biochemical reaction in his brain.

“We should get ready for the banquet,” says Janus eventually, weary and resigned. “The king did say not to be late, after all.” He swings his canvas bag back and forth in one hand, and then sets it down before beginning to shrug off his turtleneck. His tone is less than enthusiastic when he says, “Let’s get dressed up, then.”

Logan sits bolt upright, eyes going wide and wild. “ _That’s it!_ ” he exclaims, hands pressing down on the floor as he tries to right himself after an almost physical jolt of sudden understanding. The catalyst has revealed itself. It’s almost like that moment of electric comprehension that occurred when Logan had met the Erlking’s gaze, all those hours ago. But this time, it’s not terrified realization – it’s a pure moment of elation. He’d be tempted to shout _eureka_ at the top of his lungs, but... it’s probably not the best time for that.

“What?” demands Roman, standing up. “What is it?”

“I think we can get Thomas back,” Logan says, and grins. Outright _grins._ It’s unusual for him, granted, but considering the metaphorical pieces that have just metaphorically fallen together in his mind, he feels as if he deserves it. “I have a _plan._ ”


	7. logan (ii)

It’s not hard to tell where the banquet’s being held, even though nobody actually formally points them in its direction. All the glowing mossy walls are flashing and pointing inwards, to the heart of the mountain, and every glowing sprite and many-limbed creature they pass is also heading in that direction. Their small group even gets a few nods of greeting from others heading their way.

“Remember,” says Logan, adjusting his neat blue over-tunic and glancing back at everyone else. “Don’t draw his suspicion too quickly – ”

“We _know,_ Lo,” says Virgil, who sounds about as grumpy as someone who’s been unwillingly forced into the anachronistic sixteenth-century version of a tuxedo ought to be. “Keep it subtle.”

Patton makes up the third and final part of their group, and he’s currently tying the long velvet-lined jacket he’d found in the back of the closet over his shoulders, because apparently he only knows one way to wear a long-sleeved article of clothing, which is the incorrect way.

“Are you sure there’s not a better way to do this?” he says, sounding a lot more anxious than the literal embodiment of anxiety actually sounds and looks right now. “I mean. If he’s _you_ , then he’s bound to be real smart. Smart enough to figure out what we’re doing.”

“I’m aware,” Logan says, and what he doesn’t say is that he’s actually _more_ than aware of this and it’s the one thing that could tear this entire flimsy poorly-thought-up plan of his to metaphorical shreds. He is hoping, quite desperately, that he’s not quite as similar to the Erlking as he suspects he is.

Down the hallway, sticking as closely together as they can. All signs, fungal and otherwise, point right to the location of their destination. There are no doors, just two tall trees that grow around the frame of the entrance, meeting each other at the peak of the arch with their branches twisting together like a Celtic knot. Inside, the brightness and movement is staggering in its liveliness. There are colors within that Logan doesn’t have names for, and that he suspects that he’ll never see again outside of these walls. Fae of every sort and size are there, flitting across the grassy expanse that seems to be serving as a dance floor, crowding around the long tables on the sides of the room; congregating around the Erlking, at the far end of the hall – who hasn’t noticed them yet.

Patton takes in an extremely deep breath, and offers his arms out to both of them. Logan hesitates before threading an arm delicately though the crook of Patton’s elbow. Virgil, on his other side, does the same. They stand still for a moment; the rest of the fairy court flowing around them easily, paying them no attention at all.

“As I believe a certain Prince would say, ‘it’s showtime’,” Logan says, and then frowns. “The appropriate terminology is ‘fracture a fibia’, correct?”

“I _know_ you already know it’s ‘break a leg’,” sighs Virgil. “You’re doing this on purpose.”

Logan is. They have, in fact, had this exact conversation at least once before. He doesn’t say it out loud, though, because admitting that he’s trying to lighten the mood would go against the entire point of doing so.

“ _Fracture a fibia_ ’s pretty good, though,” Patton remarks. “More same-word sounds. It’s almost like a pun.”

“It’s called alliteration,” Logan says. “And, yes. It is... particularly pleasing.”

“Uh, lose a limb,” Virgil suggests.

“Fracture your foot?” Patton offers.

“Tear a tibial tubercle,” Logan says.

“No idea what that is. I’m assuming it’s an obscure leg part,” Virgil says. “What are we even talking about?” He shakes his head, grimacing. “Don’t we have a horrifying party to go to?”

“There’s nothing particularly horrifying about it,” Logan assesses, squinting, “apart from the bright, optically impossible color scheme, maybe.”

Virgil laughs, although it’s more like a humorless little cough. “Yeah, but all parties are horrifying to me, remember?”

They enter the room. It’s even more dazzling inside, and Logan momentarily has to shut his eyes in order to entirely process what he’s seeing. When he opens them, he’s very glad that they’re all linked at the arms, because he has a feeling that if they weren’t, he’d have lost the other two almost immediately – or fallen over from disorientation.

“So what, do we just... mingle?” Patton asks, sounding unsure. “What’s the etiquette for fairy parties?”

“I hate mingling,” Virgil mutters, and presses closer to the two of them as a tall, shifting figure wreathed in shadows and a faint scent of copper strides past them. Logan doesn’t miss the way that the shift in position ends up covering him and Patton from a potential attack from that angle, but he doesn’t say anything about it and neither does Virgil – who just glares in the retreating figure’s direction and carries on as if nothing had ever happened. “Besides, aren’t they all under orders to ignore us or something?”

Logan surveys the chaos and clamour of the banquet. Fae creatures everywhere. There is an entire _bear_ leaning against one table, apparently listening intently to what the glowing blur of light zipping to and fro in front of it has to say. Really, it doesn’t look all that much _like_ a banquet. More like an informal dance, or possibly a midnight revel. True, there’s platters of perfectly-prepared, luridly colored food covering just about every surface remotely resembling a table, but it’s more like a buffet than anything else.

“Mingling may be difficult, with that in mind,” he says. “But we should make our presence known. Stick together, and remember what the twins said.”

“No eating the food?” Patton asks, and his gaze shifts away to the tables piled high with decadent dishes of all sorts. “But... it looks _really_ good. And I’m hungry.”

“No, you’re not,” says Logan firmly, quashing the faint hint of annoyance that threatens to creep into his words. “We don’t need to eat, Pa – Morality.” Although, that isn’t quite true, is it? Even as he thinks about it, he becomes aware of the faint gnawing of hunger in the pit of his stomach. Being human has its limitations, and he doesn’t like them in the least.

Maybe it’s just the power of suggestion, Logan thinks, and hopes desperately that really is the case.

“Remember what happened the last time fairy food got involved?” Virgil is saying, and Patton is pulling a face and nodding reluctantly. “So. No eating, no drinking, no kissing, no fucking. No dancing, no real names, don’t make promises or bets, try not to offend anyone – is that everything?” he adds, glancing over at Logan.

Logan nods. This is an accurate summary of the information imparted upon them by their two resident fairy mythology experts. Really, Roman is more knowledgeable than his brother on most counts – but Remus _does_ remember every gruesome detail from the darker, more obscure stories, which are slightly more relevant to their current situation. It all balances out, more or less.

Music rises over the sounds of movement and laughter and conversation; bright and lively and seemingly coming from everywhere at once until Logan narrows his eyes and pinpoints the source: to one side, right next to the Erlking, a group of feathered creatures are hard at work providing accompaniment for the evening’s festivities. It sounds almost Celtic in origin, judging by the style and percussive elements. Strings and tambourines, no words.

Creatures and beings from all over the room already on their feet and various other limbs and whirling across the soft, springy grass in wide arcing circles – swinging from partner to partner, knocking elbows and clasping hands in complex dance patterns that seem to repeat over and over and fold into each other kaleidoscopically. The colors and textures of the air are becoming vague and blurry at the centrepoint of it all. Logan finds himself oddly fascinated by the ritual, and takes a step closer to watch, but is tugged back by someone’s grip on his right arm. He blinks, suddenly angry, and turns to snap at them – but it’s only Patton, looking worried.

“I don’t know if that’s such a great idea,” he says. “How about we go somewhere else for a bit, okay?”

Reality is thin here – shredding and unravelling at the edges or wherever he pays close attention to. There are dark things beneath the feet of the dancers and something vitally wrong with the glowing fungus on the walls. He can tell that Patton and Virgil can’t see what he sees, and wonders why that is. Wonders if he’s really being more needlessly paranoid than anxiety itself, and if not, why is the music being overtaken by a faint but entirely oppressive buzzing in his ears -

Logan shakes himself out of it. “Yes,” he says. “That is probably for the best.”

Patton points to the far end of the room, which looks a little quieter and a lot less impossible to look at, and they start making their way over. It seems as if the fae in this room either haven’t got the metaphorical fairy memo about not interacting with them, or that order’s been rescinded temporarily, because quite a few of the ones they brush by attempt to instigate conversation. One of them tries to kiss Virgil with no warning, which Virgil is not happy about, to put it extremely lightly.

In the middle of it all, Logan catches snatches of people they know. He hears Dodie’s laugh as they hurry past a group of sprites whose wings are alight with burning embers, sees a flash of something that might just be Terrence’s grin. A flickering patch of mist bears an uncanny resemblance to Quil. It’s impossible to tell if he’s just imagining things; if confirmation bias isn’t forcing images of friends and acquaintances into his mind. Is it really that likely that so many mirrored versions of Thomas’s social circle would be members of a rather sadistic-seeming fairy court?

They end up semi-cowering in the corner, avoiding eye contact as much as possible. Logan tries not to look too hard at the inherent wrongness of the colors, or of the alien creatures all around them, or of the food or drink or dancers. This was not part of the ‘make their presence known’ plan, but Logan can’t really bring himself to object. At this point, he wants nothing more than to go home. Scoop Thomas up as fast as they can, and just _leave,_ no matter how impossible that may be.

“I see you’ve found yourself well-entrenched in the festivities,” says a horribly familiar voice, and the Erlking is standing there, hands tucked neatly behind his back – resplendent in a long coat that appears to be entirely made out of a flowing gradient of maple leaves, perfectly preserved. Logan has to hide a flinch. Virgil makes no effort to disguise the fact that he’s bristling with anger and tension. It’s probably a good thing that they’re all linked at the arms, because at least one of them is ready to fight and at least one of them is ready to run away as fast as possible right out the door of this room, damn the consequences.

“Good evening, your maj,” Patton greets with a little nervous bob that’s half a bow and half a curtsey. “Uhm. How’s the party treating you so far?”

“It is what it is,” says the Erlking with a slight incline of his head. “I notice that several of your number aren’t here tonight. A terrible shame.” The way he phrases it makes it sound like that ‘terrible shame’ is the sort of thing that leads to a quick and violent death.

“They’ll be along soon,” says Logan, and glances around the room, eyes wandering from table to cluster of fairies to table. “Self-Preservation was just here, as a matter of fact. He said he’d seen you.”

“Did he?” The Erlking’s gaze follows Logan’s. “I see. I take it that the other two are... preoccupied.”

“You gave us six hours,” Virgil snaps. “We’ve got at least three left. You might as well let us use them to free Thomas, since, you know, that’s what we _came here for._ ” The slightest hint of an angry echo lingers on those last couple of words.

For a moment, the Erlking’s eyes widen, and then he just nods in a _fair enough_ sort of way, face implacable once more. “Come,” he tells them, and although the looks on Patton and Virgil’s faces (as well as Logan’s own, most likely) reflect just how unhappy they are about the very prospect, they do – following him all the way to the middle of the side of the room that’s furthest from the doors. There is a long strip of seating there; carved wooden chairs that twist and tangle into each other in a way that most human furniture doesn’t typically do, with a long row of a short, knee-height table running just in front of it.

The Erlking takes a seat at the most central and most ornate of these chairs, and gestures for them to sit. Tentatively, they do; all congregating on the three chairs to his left. Logan ends up being the closest to him, and isn’t sure if the benefits of keeping the other two away from him outweigh what it’s doing to his nerves.

From here, Logan has an excellent view of the fae revellers on the ballroom floor, and it’s becoming even more apparent that whatever sort of strange dance they’re performing, the cracks in reality that they’re rending through it are very deliberate indeed. They’re dancing to the strange uneven beat of music in seven-eight time. That’s one-two, one-two, one-two-three; one-two, one-two, one-two-three; _circle circle triangle,_ over and over again, and on every seventh quaver of every bar, there’s a ripping and a tearing and a glimpse into another place is revealed. Not long enough for Logan to actually see into it, but enough to give him a dreadful headache and to make his skin crawl. And somehow he just can’t look away.

It’s undeniably purposeful; focused. He wonders who they’re dancing for. It certainly isn’t the Erlking – he’s not even paying attention to them. He hasn’t been at all for the entire night.

Virgil squeezes Logan’s arm a bit too tightly. He snaps out of it, again, and is furious at himself. He tunes back into what’s going on immediately around him. Patton’s been making nervous smalltalk with the Erlking all this time, which is the sort of thing that Patton should never have to do, because the Erlking’s idea of smalltalk apparently consists of haughty opinions about the fae residing in the forest outside the lower town and their policies on interacting with humans. Patton appears to be nodding along and offering vague platitudes, which is a good tactic that is going to inevitably fall apart extremely quickly and at the worst possible moment.

Thankfully, it’s at about that moment that a timely intervention arrives, in the form of the only sort of royalty that Logan actually respects.

“Erlking! _We’re here!_ ” a wonderfully familiar voice yells, voice booming and echoing all over the room. The sound of conversation dies down slightly. Ripples of confusion echo across the room before dying down as everyone seems to realize that they don’t care all that much, and proceedings return to the fae equivalent of an equilibrium.

But the Erlking looks up after a second, and the remaining color seems to drain from his already immensely pale skin. With a sharp gesture of his hand, the musicians are suddenly cut off, fingers seizing and hands grasping at their feathered throats.

This is the cue for everyone else to shut up instantly and follow his gaze, because when the king of the fairies is shocked enough to strangle an entire music troupe on reflex, you tend to want to know what he’s so concerned about.

Framed in the doorway are three people with exactly the same height and build, identical in almost every way except the way they’re dressed – all looking slightly ruffled, as if they’ve run across half the castle to get there in time.

Remus is on the left side of the door, bracing himself against one side of the doorway. With the hem of his luxurious, long, and somehow _still_ extremely provocative skirt hitched up in one hand, he beams and waves, panting slightly. “We’re late and fabulous!”

“One Thomas, as promised!” Roman declares in that same booming voice, and throws an arm decisively to the man who’s standing between them, who coughs awkwardly and then raises a hand in greeting.

“Hey,” Thomas says brightly but unsurely to a room of silence and unthinkably inhuman beings, all of which are currently staring at him in complete disbelief. “Uh... what is _up_ , everybody?”

There are still flowers in Thomas’s hair, and pollen dusted lightly over his cheeks. His long shimmering mother-of-pearl gown is slightly askew, and he’s barefoot in the grass, shifting his weight from foot to foot as he looks nervously across at the Erlking, who is at this very moment staring at him in open disbelief.

Logan holds his breath.

“ _How?_ ” the Erlking breathes, gathering himself to his feet. He moves slowly but smoothly, rising from his throne like a wave and descending down into the crowd, which parts before him in silent terror. He stalks through the crowds on the dance floor. “How have you done this?”

Roman and Remus, on either side of Thomas, close in around him automatically, but the Erlking pushes them aside ungracefully.

“Who undid the witch-knots?” snaps the Erlking, grabbing a bemused-looking Thomas’s head in his hands, and tugging roughly at his hair, which is ruffled and a bit windswept but apart from that, entirely untangled. “All seven of them, braided all through his hair. _Who was it?_ ”

No response, from any of them.

“Answer me!” the Erlking roars. “How did you know to unravel them backwards? How did you know that would unbind him from that room?”

“Well, we have a _very_ smart friend,” says Roman.

“And the spider-silk,” he insists, whirling to glare at each of them in turn, “stretched all beneath the bed, to keep the vines from letting him go. _Who?_ Who did this?”

Thomas wriggles and squirms because his head is still being held onto, and it doesn’t look comfortable in the least. “None of them did,” he says. “I cut them myself.”

“ _Don’t lie to me,_ ” the Erlking howls with a nightmarish screech of dissonance loud and horrible enough to rival anything Virgil could ever produce. “Who wiped the kisses from his eyelids? There is no power in our land that can remove an enchantment placed personally by me?”

“That would be me,” Remus says, a hand going to Thomas’s shoulder as he attempts to tug him back from the Erlking’s grasp. “Using – ah, our incredible powers and tools that we brought over with us from the other world!”

There is a long, charged moment of electric silence. It feels _exactly_ like the split-second before a storm breaks. Then the Erlking abruptly releases Thomas’s head and takes a step back. His expression is apocalyptic, but his tone is supernaturally calm when he says, “I insist you stay for dinner.”

“We don’t eat,” Virgil blurts, and Thomas shoots him an incredulous look.

“Eating is not necessary,” growls the Erlking. “ _Stay._ ”

*

 _Staying,_ as it turns out, is an immensely awkward affair. The Erlking wants all of their group to join him up on the strip of seating at the head of the room, and they all do, initially. But there are a lot of fae that want to get a closer look at Thomas out of curiosity – so much so that when he quietly begs the Erlking to move to a less crowded, obviously public part of the room, he actually agrees, albeit reluctantly. Logan accompanies him, and they end up hovering near the remains of the ensemble.

The fae that had been providing music up until Thomas’s arrival look extremely dead. Or at the very least, they’re lying, unmoving, near their instruments, hands to their throats and eyes glazed wide open. This could be the fairy equivalent of a calming, restful nap, for all Logan knows. Nonetheless, they don’t look like they’re going to be up to providing much entertainment anytime soon.

This is a fact that Roman seems to pick up on, as he springs to his feet and declares, “How about a song?”

“A song?” the Erlking asks, evidently puzzled.

“A song?” Remus says, tapping his fingers to his lips thoughtfully.

“It’s just not a proper party without music!” Roman exclaims spiritedly; almost manically, as if the slightest drop in energy will lead to him crashing and burning on the spot. “And I notice that your band is... currently indisposed. Which makes for lousy atmosphere, if you ask me. What do you say?”

The Erlking appears to think this over for a moment, and then he smiles, slow and steady. “Certainly,” he says, leaning back in his seat. “I’d appreciate some amusement. Sing for me, Passion.”

“Just a moment!” Roman chirps, and promptly flees halfway across the room, right towards Logan.

“Good thinking,” says Thomas as Roman arrives, chewing thoughtfully at his lip. “What song were you thinking of singing?”

“...I didn’t get that far,” admits Roman. “ _Um._ They probably don’t know Disney, do they? _Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious_ would probably be an interesting experience for a bunch of fairies, I’m thinking – ”

“Unless,” says Remus from right behind him.

“ _Unless_ ,” Roman rejoins, twisting around to look at him, and it must be one of those strange inexplicable things of theirs where they get identical ideas at once, because they both seem to be on the same wavelength when Roman says, “Oh, no, but – acapella? Really?”

“You need music?” asks Logan, catching on, and shoves what looks quite a lot like a standard skin-covered drum at Thomas. “Percussion,” he explains, and he takes a long pole with several thick gut-strings running along the edge. “And bass. Hopefully.” He plucks experimentally at the lowest of the strings, and a rich, ringing note sounds out around the room. He nods once to himself, approving, and then at Roman and Remus. “There you have it. The metaphorical floor is yours _._ ”

Remus grabs his brother’s arm and mutters something, and Roman nods and mutters something back, and then they separate and Roman hums a fast-paced little melody at Logan. “Sea shanty speed and mood? It’s pretty repetitive – ”

“Mind out for the rhythm change at the end of the verses, it’s a doozy,” Remus adds cheerfully.

“ – you’ll know when we’re done.” Roman gives a cheerful thumbs-up. “Don’t worry too much about it! There’s something about this place, I think it’s magic – it makes it _really_ easy to improvise musical numbers.”

Logan and Thomas exchange glances as Roman and Remus mutter unintelligible twinspeak nonsense at each other for another second or two, and then exchange grudging nods before turning and heading right for the centre of the room.

At their nod, Logan starts plucking out the melody – clumsily, at first, but then with more confidence as he starts to get the hang of it. The notes echo louder than would be reasonably expected from such a skinny, non-resonant instrument. It’s rich and dark and warm, something between a double-bass and a low-tuned harp and distinct enough that Logan’s sure everyone in this room can hear it clearly. Either the acoustics in this room are really quite impressive, or there’s something distinctly magical going on.

Beside him, Thomas’s face contorts into a kind of panicked grimace, and then he starts drumming out a frenetic gallop of a rhythm to the speed of Logan’s playing. It’s shaky and uncoordinated at first, but it quickly settles down into recording-studio-quality evenness. Logan has just enough time to wonder if Roman’s claim of this world providing a smooth and immersive musical theatre experience has any credibility to it, before Roman starts stomping his foot to the offbeat of the melody, a pleasant counterpoint to Thomas’s drumming – and he begins to sing.

“ _My lover’s smile is warm - warm and bright, like a glowing fire  
The color of his eyes - fair and green, sweet with his desire  
He’s cradling my face - softest lips, never harsh or tight  
He twines his arms around me and he’ll stay through the forever night!_”

Almost the exact instant that he’s done, Remus jumps in and brings the melody up a minor third – voice dripping with excitement and relish as he belts out the next verse:

“ _My lover’s smile is sharp - sharp and cruel, like the raging tide  
His kiss is fierce and hot - hot like coals, tastes of cyanide  
We fall into his bed - fingers stab, carving into me -  
There’s sweetness on my tongue and now we’re falling through eternity!_”

It may not be entirely conscious on their part (maybe they’re just getting overenthusiastic?) But the two of them are trying to push the tempo faster, and Logan finds himself scowling in annoyance and plucking louder and more pointedly to reign them back in. Nobody likes a song that speeds up so fast that it’s almost impossible to make out individual words.

Logan sighs sharply through his nose, and watches as Roman picks up the thread of the song.

“ _My lover braids my hair - fingers deft, weaves love into it  
He’s gentle and he’s kind - holds me close, he’s a perfect fit  
We’re dancing in the grass - soft and cool, bare feet skimming by  
There’s sunlight all around us and the breeze is calling us to fly!_”

And back to Remus once more:

“ _My lover whips my flesh - howling rage, moves mechanical  
There’s blood upon my face - and his lips, vengeful cannibal  
We fill each other up - blood and bone, folding into one  
We’re writhing-changing-growing, soon the world will fear what we’ve become!_”

There’s something wrong with this music. Fundamentally so. There is _only_ Logan and Thomas and Roman and Remus – strings and drums and voice and voice – and so those should be the only sounds echoing through this room as the rest of the fae court watches them in horribly judging silence, but there’s something more building up behind the somewhat basic musical accompaniment. An amount of depth akin to a film soundtrack or a full orchestral score. Logan swears he can hear woodwind and fiddle and a deep, rumbling bass, although no instruments or musicians of the sort can be seen all throughout the room.

Logan is getting a very bad feeling about this. He catches Thomas’s gaze and sees that same trepidation reflected there, but... he can’t stop. Neither of them can stop. Logan isn’t sure if he _wants_ to stop and isn’t sure if it’s because of some sort of compulsion or out of a morbid fascination of seeing this through.

Roman and Remus have identical mad glints in their eyes as they circle each other, and as the sound swells around them, they begin rapidly exchanging snippets of melody, cutting over each other to pick up the beat of the other’s thoughts with astounding fluidity.

“ _My lover’s smile is warm -_ ”

“ _\- tinged with doubt, drilling into me!_ ”

“ _The color of his eyes_ -”

“ _\- green and mad, sweet insanity!”_

“ _He’s cradling my face_ -”

“ _\- hungry eyes, splits me open wide!”_

“ _He twines his arms around me -”_

“ _\- and he’s driving me to suicide!”_

The fae revellers are creeping back onto the dance floor, and Roman and Remus are in the centre of it all. They both seem to be so caught up in the almost violent intensity of the song they’re singing that they don’t notice when everyone around them starts to dance.

The song is in common time; the beat strong and steady and kept in place by Thomas and Logan together, but that doesn’t stop the dancers from twirling and clapping in precise, complicated syncopation that sets Logan’s teeth on edge – twining their fingers and arms together, lifting and leaping, warping reality on the offbeats. Logan can see beyond the veil, and what he sees terrifies him. But whenever he blinks or looks away for even a second, he finds that he can’t remember what he’s seen – and that terrifies him even more.

“ _My lover’s smile is sharp - ”_

“ _\- sharply fond, shining bright and proud!”_

“ _His kiss is fierce and hot - ”_

“ _\- steals my breath, leaves me laughing loud!”_

“ _We fall into his bed - ”_

“ _\- like a dream, chase off all the cold!”_

“ _There’s sweetness on my tongue and now - ”_

“ _\- our love is blooming sweet and gold!”_

Roman and Remus are swinging the beat more and more as their voices rise loud above the music and the clapping and the stomping. They’re riffing wildly and sliding smoothly up and down the octaves in siren-like glissando as they drive the song further and further away from a steady tempo and into polyrhythmic patterns that seem just as complicated and hypnotic as the movement of the dancers.

The drums and bassline aren’t enough. Logan can feel the thin control of the rhythm sliding away from him. His mind races as he frantically tries to think of something to do, and when he settles on the obvious answer, he wants to groan and bury his face in his hands.

Instead, he clears his throat, and cuts neatly across the twins before they can start on a new verse, spinning one of his own on the spot: neat and precise and no swung beats in the least. Simple spoken-word quavers, monotone and inoffensive; bringing things back to an equilibrium – or so he hopes.

 _“My lover’s wit is sharp and fast and last I’d heard of him he’d long  
Departed to a differ_ent _location, hesitation never  
Started in his mind, but I myself am left behind so I’m  
Bereft - without his eloquence, intelligence seems hardly worth this  
Theft, this damned attachment; I must de-attach myself, no need for  
Sentimental wishful temperamental inclinations; maybe  
When my heart stops yearning I’ll return, be cold and taciturn, but  
Now I’ve lost my only lover, I will never love another -_”

The moment the last word – or even the first, really – leaves his mouth, Logan knows he’s made a mistake. He tries to stop himself, he really does, but the next thing he knows, the breathless rhythmic monologue is spilling from his lips again and, what’s more, both Remus and Roman are singing their own verses over the top of it, and, what’s more, Thomas is starting to mutter something of a melodic ostinato under his breath.

Overall, the effect is quite honestly astounding. But Logan doesn’t want to see what happens if it continues for any longer.

As his fingers move down the fretboard of his instrument to pluck out a particularly high note, he takes his chance. Brusquely seizing it in both hands, he lets out an unholy yell, and wrenches them as hard as he can in opposite directions. The instrument’s neck is lithe and delicate and absolutely not up to the task of withstanding his frustration.

It splinters into pieces in his hands, and the music grinds to a stop.

A feeling like being abruptly doused with freezing-cold water washes over Logan, and he almost lets out an audible sigh as he realizes he can finally think properly for the first time in several minutes. Panting, he looks up to see that along with the rest of the court, the twins have frozen in place. They’re staring at each other in mutual horror, as if they’re only just now realizing how out of control things have gotten.

“Is this the sort of thing you all usually do when I’m not around?” Thomas mutters, looking pale and unsteady. “Because I’m suddenly _extremely_ glad you keep it to your own corner of the mind.”

Clapping echoes through the suddenly silent room, and everyone looks up to see the Erlking with a wry little smile on his face – on his feet, slowly applauding them. He doesn’t say anything, but the dancers seem to take this as a cue to gracefully file their way back into the surrounding crowds.

Roman and Remus step to the side, as well, and when they’re joined by Logan and Thomas, Roman just shakes his head and mutters, “Nope. I have no idea what that was.”

“I can’t believe I have to say this, but _please_ never engage in wild musical numbers in the middle of fairy parties ever again!” Thomas hisses back at him.

The Erlking beckons them back to the front of the room. Reluctantly, they go.

Logan has the strangest creeping feeling of having done something wrong, like a child being called to the principal’s office for stealing books, but the Erlking doesn’t remark on anything that’s just occurred. It’s almost as if that entire literal song-and-dance had never occurred in the first place. The Erlking slides neatly back into what he had been doing before Thomas’s arrival: idle chitchat, and occasionally scrutinizing his domain with an immeasurably pleased look.

The distraction seems to have served its purpose, though, because there’s another thing that he doesn’t comment on – the fact that two of their number are missing.

It’s all going... not ‘well’, not exactly, but events have at least reached a steady, uneasy sort of equilibrium. The Erlking is exchanging stilted, tense conversation with some of his subjects, and occasionally looks over at Logan and the others to involve them for a moment or two, although Logan can’t begin to fathom why.

It’s at one of these mildly unpleasant conversational moments, where the Erlking turns to Thomas to ask him about something utterly inconsequential – the arrangement of the feast on the tables, apparently – when he pauses, evidently noticing something awry.

“Your face,” he says slowly, eyes narrowed in suspicion. He reaches out a hand towards Thomas, who jerks back reflexively, eyes widening. “What’s that on the side of your face?”

“Nothing,” Thomas reassures him, bringing his hand up to feel at his left cheek, and then not-so-subtly cover it up under the pretext of resting his hand on his chin. He lets out a sudden, nervous burst of laughter. “Humans get terrible acne under stress, you know...”

Logan, from his side of the table, can see exactly what’s happening to Thomas’s face and why he’s trying to cover it up so desperately. Roman can apparently see it too, judging by his sudden grimace. Remus is apparently just not paying attention to this exchange at _all_ , because his gaze is fixed on the massive double-doors at the other end of the room.

“Don’t lie to me,” says the Erlking. His look of suspicion has graduated neatly into one of dawning comprehension. He reaches out and grabs Thomas’s hand, tugging it forcibly away from his face.

“Oh fuck,” says Thomas, just as glimmering yellow-tinted scales erupt across the side of his face like popcorn, and one side of his mouth lengthens and curves all the way up to his ear. He grabs the hem of his dress and tries to pull it up to obscure the sudden change, but it’s far too late for that.

The Erlking’s eyes have gone very wide all of a sudden. He takes a sharp breath in, and then lets it out, very slowly. “I see. I’ve been deceived.”

“That is my job, yes,” replies Janus, with a hint of smugness to his words, as well as a healthy amount of fear.

“And if you were masquerading as him, then...” The Erlking trails off, gaze drifting over Logan and Remus and Roman, as if he’s only just now noting the distinct lack of Virgil and Patton – who have, of course, been missing ever since the twins started their musical number.

“Well, like we said...” Roman bumps Logan’s shoulder with his own. “We have a _very_ smart friend.”

And as if on cue, Thomas – the _real_ Thomas – stumbles through the doors in an Avatar: the Last Airbender t-shirt and loose sweatpants, looking extraordinarily out-of-place and extremely confused in a way that puts Janus’s earlier acting efforts to shame. Behind him are Virgil and Patton, both looking grimly satisfied with themselves. Virgil is covered in spiderwebs, and Patton has Janus’s canvas bag slung over one shoulder.

“I don’t know what’s going on, but apparently I need to be here, at this party...?” Thomas asks loudly, the end of the sentence twisting up into audible panic. “...Oh _boy_ there’s a lot of fairies here.”

“Well,” says Logan, turning to the Erlking and trying not to look too unbearably smug. “I believe this satisfies all of your conditions. As you can see; here is Thomas. We’ve found him and woken him, and now he’s of open eye and of conscious mind, attending your banquet. We would now like to leave.”

The Erlking looks at Logan, and there’s that same uncanny connection there. Like staring at a mirror, but the person you’re seeing looks nothing like you, even though their every movement reflects yours perfectly.

They are nothing alike. The Erlking does things for no reason and treats people like objects to be traded and gambled with and he _doesn’t love Thomas_. How can he be Logan if he doesn’t love Thomas? It just doesn’t track; doesn’t compute – that any version of Logan in any universe could sit there on a flower-encrusted throne like a lavishly dressed wannabe god and play with people’s lives and throw parties for no reason and smile and clap as the universe is being torn apart right in front of him by strange illogical songs and dances and just _not care about Thomas in the least._

He wonders how it is that they, of all the two people in the universe, are somehow one and the same, and he’s _sure_ that the Erlking’s currently thinking exactly the same thing as him.

“Take him,” the Erlking declares, not breaking eye contact with Logan, and is that a grudging hint of respect that he sees in those seaglass eyes? It’s hard to tell. “He’s yours. I’m not one to break promises, and this is no exception.”

“Fuckin’ nailed it,” Remus crows triumphantly, raising a hand to Roman for a high-five that isn’t returned.

“ _However,_ ” says the Erlking, and it’s flatly ominous enough to stop even Remus right in his tracks. “This ultimately changes nothing. You may have his body back, but his heart is not his own, and his hours are numbered.”

“Uh. What,” goes Thomas, who Logan is only now realizing has missed out on a _lot._

“Leave.” The Erlking turns his back with a swirl of his long autumn-leaf cloak. It’s very much a final sort of gesture, leaving no option for further conversation.

It also doesn’t seem like he’s going to be taking any sort of revenge out upon them, which is a satisfying conclusion to the transaction as far as Logan’s concerned. He stands up, tugging Roman and Janus, on either side of him, to their feet as he does. Together, they powerwalk awkwardly down the middle of the dance floor, and join the others at the door.

“Let’s get out of here,” Janus says quietly, because pretty much every fae and fae being in the room is still staring at either them or the Erlking. It’s a deeply unsettling experience.

“Yes, _please,_ ” Thomas agrees, looking relieved. Everyone clusters around Thomas and they set off down the hallway.

“Take it easy, trolls, gnolls and nonbinary souls; _peace out!_ ” Roman yells over his shoulder, and soon the door to the banquet hall becomes a distant speck at the end of the corridor and the noises of song and dance are floating back towards them in a faint, heady buzz of sound.

“Uh,” Thomas says, and he sounds a lot more coherent than he’s been so far since they’ve arrived in this reality. “I get the feeling that something really significant just went down, but I don’t understand, like. _Any_ of it. Why are you guys dressed up all fancy? And – oh, wait, Janus! Your face, it’s back to normal – ”

Janus actually grins; openly and genuinely. Thomas’s usual smile looks radiant on his face – which, incidentally, is completely back as it was. The scales shine faintly in the glow of the bioluminescent fungus life nearby. “It is!” He runs the back of a nail against them. _Click-click-click._ “Probably a result of ‘getting your body back’ from him.”

This makes some amount of sense, but Logan can’t help but feel like there’s something not quite right about that – especially since Virgil’s own abilities had kicked in before they’d even reached the castle. And especially since he still feels dreadfully uncomfortably human.

“Long story short, you got all Sleeping Beauty-ed by the King of the Fairies,” Roman explains to Thomas. “And kissing you didn’t work, so Logan here – ” He claps Logan on the shoulders, beaming. “– worked out how to trick him into telling us how to wake you up!”

“I did,” Logan says. “Speaking of which. How _did_ you end up breaking the ‘fairy kiss’ part of that curse? He stated quite categorically that ‘no power in the land’ could undo it.”

“Mr Clean,” Virgil tells him with a shrug, passing Janus back his bag. “Surprisingly effective against dirt, germs, and inscrutable weird fairy curses. We should probably stock up on it in future. Just in case.”

“Oh,” says Thomas, and sniffs before wrinkling his nose slightly. “So that’s why I smell like antiseptic.”

Roman frowns. “Why did you even bring that along in the first place?”

“Oh, you know. Be prepared,” Janus says, holding three fingers neatly into the air.

“Okay, so first of all, Thomas was never a Boy Scout and _you_ certainly weren’t,” Virgil begins, and whatever he’s going to say next is lost because the door leading to the outside of the castle looms ahead.

Remus lets out a loud cackle of delight and rushes forwards to shoulder-check it open – and surprisingly, that does work. Agonizingly slowly, the great slab of wood creaks outwards, and within seconds they’re all rushing down the grassy path to the mountainside gates like they’re all starring leading roles in the classic Grimms’ story of Cinderella and the clock has just loudly struck midnight, inciting them to flee with great haste. Which, considering the position of the moon in the unfamiliar star-streaked sky and the amount of time they’ve spent in the castle so far, might not be an entirely inaccurate comparison.

The gates to the exterior of the mountain are wide open, thank whichever of Roman’s fictional heroes are applicable in this current situation, and no sooner have they all crossed the threshold between the castle’s outside garden and the rocky path outside then they’re swinging shut of their own accord.

“Now,” says Janus, as the gate slams shut behind them with a final-sounding _clang_ , “have we all learned our lesson about lying being a good thing under the right circumstances? We have? Good! Excellent! I expect another sequel video the moment we get back home – ”

“ _Please_ pick a better time to flex your lying capabilities,” Virgil begs. “Maybe when we’re not freezing our asses off on the side of a fantasy mountain?”

“Mm, frozen ass,” Remus remarks. “Ass popsicle! Tasty!”

“Remus,” Thomas begins, and then shakes his head, apparently out of words. “No. Just... no.”

It’s all so perfectly _normal_ that Logan could cry. If he closes his eyes, he can almost imagine that they’re all ringing the edge of the living room. Almost. There’s the echo and the wind, for one thing, and also he can hear his heartbeat, which – he shouldn’t be able to do that. He wants to stop thinking about that. He really shouldn’t, though, because someone needs to consider the implications of it and start thinking about what it means that Thomas’s _heart is wrong,_ because he sincerely doubts that anyone else is going to be doing that anytime soon.

“You guys are definitely going to have to fill me in again, because the last thing I properly remember was the ride up here,” Thomas is saying. “But from what I can tell, you guys pretty much saved my life. Or soul? Or something? So, uh – really, I can’t thank you enough. Shit, let me – ” He goes cross-eyed from a second, squinting at several flowers that have become partly unravelled from his hair, and starts tugging them properly loose. He hands a hydrangea to Logan. “This, it’s, um. Considering everything that just happened with flowers and all, this is probably a bit on the nose, but –”

Logan, strangely touched by this despite the impracticality and spontaneity of the gesture, takes the small blossom gently from Thomas. “There’s no need to thank us, really,” he says, and very carefully tucks it behind his ear. “This is all essentially a glorified self-preservation instinct. We’re not doing anything that you wouldn’t do for yourself.”

“Must you really phrase it like that?” Janus sighs with a roll of his eyes. “After all the trouble I went through impersonating you, it feels more than a bit dismissive. I mean, we outwitted a _fairy king_ for you _,_ for god’s sake. A little gratitude wouldn’t –”

“You’re right,” interrupts Thomas, pressing a daisy into Janus’s hands, which actually manages to shock him into shutting up.

Janus freezes for a split second, then accepts the daisy. “Thomas, as much as I love hearing you say those words, they seem to be a limited commodity coming from you. So do me a favour and take them back instantly so you can save them for a less patently absurd situation.”

“It _might_ be self-preservation,” Virgil adds, standing awkwardly a short distance away, trying to shove his hands in his dress jacket’s non-existent pockets, “but, you know. At the moment we’re separate enough entities from him that I think our actions might not be dependent on him?” He shudders. “I don’t want to think about it.”

...So someone else _has_ noticed. Logan supposes that’s a good thing. Then again, out of all of them, Virgil’s possibly the one who has the most obvious direct connection with Thomas’s emotional state, so it seems reasonable that the loss of that must be disconcerting.

“What now?” Thomas wonders. He’s shivering slightly.

Janus obviously notes this too, because he digs through his ever-present bag of their collective belongings and produces the red jacket Roman had initially brought along, and tosses it in Thomas’s direction. “I’m absolutely _thrilled_ to find out what happens to us when you freeze to death, so feel free to start doing that now,” he says, and when it looks like Roman’s about to protest, adds, “Suck it up. _You_ have a cool cape now. And it was his to begin with.”

“Thanks,” says Thomas, throwing it on with a relieved little sigh.

“And in response to ‘what now’,” Logan adds, “getting back to town would be a good start, I suspect.”

“Oh! _Oh!_ ” Patton’s eyes go wide, and he hops a few steps further down the mountain, squinting out into the gloomy darkness. “Octavian?” he calls.

The rest of the group follows him as they carefully make their way back along the narrow path to where they’d seen Octavian of Kadath last.

“We made it out,” Patton continues, a bit uncertainly. “Er – actually, are you still there-?”

There’s a grunt and a faint noise like someone accidentally rolling over onto their instrument, then a muffled curse, and a few seconds later a slightly dishevelled Octavian emerges into the dim moonlight. His gold-trimmed cape is thrown roughly across his body, as if he’s been using it as a makeshift blanket, and he rubs at his eyes for a moment before grinning broadly at all of them. “Well, would you look at that? And in less than twenty-four hours, to boot!” He fumbles for the cittern hanging across his back and manages to half-strum a clumsy, triumphant major chord.

Now that Logan’s looking for it, it’s very easy to see where Octavian of Kadath resembles Roman. The confident fluidity of his movements, the intonations and phrasings. And Octavian is a _good_ person, a kind person. Roman’s alternate-universe double took seven strangers up a dangerous mountain just because they looked like they needed help. What does that say about Roman, and what does that say about _him?_

“I take it that you found what you were looking for?” Octavian asks.

In response, Roman spreads his arms wide, and sings out, clear and bright:

_"Good-bye to the Fae King!  
And we will be taking  
Our friend from this prison and leave of this hall!  
A promise's a promise -  
He's given us Thomas! -  
And now we're departing, O Thomas and all!"_

Octavian actually _bounces_ upon hearing this, a tiny little hop on the heels of his shiny golden-buckled boots, and exclaims, “Oh, wonderful! Wonderful, wonderful, absolutely exquisite – look at all of you, dressed up all pretty and all ready for a daring escape down the mountainside! This _will_ be a tale for the ages. Now!” He claps his hands together, and spins around in a whirl of gaudy fringed cape and delight. “Obviously I can’t _wait_ to hear all the delicious dirty details, but there’s really no sense sticking around on this horribly floral mountainside for any longer than we have to. Shall we?”

Remus helps Octavian drag the cart out onto the path and after a brief interlude taken to wake the horses and get them hooked up back to pull them along, everybody piles in. Octavian cracks the reins and they’re off, rumbling back down the mountain and back to town.

Logan takes up the task of informing a deeply interested but also deeply bemused Thomas – and Octavian, who’s listening in with extreme enthusiasm – of the details of the previous few hours. Put into words, it sounds incredibly outlandish and Logan finds himself struggling to say a few key phrases, such as ‘binding curse’ and ‘fairy banquet’.

“Quite the adventure,” remarks Octavian, when Logan’s done. His fingers twitch like he’s already itching to write it all down. It’s a very good thing that he manages to restrain himself, considering he’s the one currently driving the cart. “And you have my hearty congratulations for all of that masterful deception of yours, Mister Logan and Mister Janus. However...” He frowns. “I will admit that I’m not entirely sure what to think of this whole mirror-world business. You’re claiming that he and I,” he gestures over at Roman, “are the same?”

“It’s only a theory,” says Logan, already mildly regretting voicing it aloud with Octavian present.

“A strongly-supported theory,” adds Roman. “I mean, look at us. We’re clearly the most handsome ones here, there’s got to be _some_ connection. No offense, Thomas.”

“Uh, none taken. I think,” says Thomas, who’s currently on the other side of the cart, squished firmly between Patton and Roman. All three of them are sharing Roman’s stolen fairy cape, which is just big enough to be used as a makeshift blanket. “But, I don’t think the mirror-people thing is our biggest problem right now. I just don’t get what we’re supposed to do next. I mean, everyone keeps talking about my heart and how the one I’ve got isn’t _right_ or whatever, and... I think they might be right. Like, I know that what just happened is super dangerous and I probably should be terrified out of my mind right now – and I _am,_ actually, but my heart’s completely steady.”

Roman leans over and presses his ear to Thomas’s chest, and then he says, “Hey, _yeah,_ ” with no small amount of surprise.

“You’re disconnected from all of us right now. That could have something to do with it,” Logan hypothesizes, somewhat wildly. They’ve all tried sinking out again, and had once again failed at doing so. Although Janus’s face seems to be back to normal, as far as scales go, it doesn’t appear as if any of them besides Virgil have regained any sort of unusual or non-human abilities. It’s a puzzle that Logan doesn’t even know how to begin solving. What’s the factor that determines how human they are? “You’re not afraid, just like you were when Virgil... ducked out.”

“Quack-quack,” says Patton, like clockwork.

“What?” asks Octavian of Kadath, who hasn’t been exposed to their particular brand of inane stupidity for nearly long enough to understand just how ridiculous things can get with them.

“It’s not exactly like that, though,” Thomas says earnestly. “Without my anxiety, I was acting like a total idiot; I didn’t have any idea what was going on or where I was. But I know exactly what’s going on right now!”

“You do?” asks Virgil. “Oh, good. Maybe you can let me know about that.”

“Well,” Thomas amends. “I don’t _exactly_ know what’s going on. But I’m pretty sure that right now, we’re heading down the side of this mountain to get to that town, and...” He hesitates, and then shrugs, a bit helplessly. “You know, I really don’t know what we’re going to do after that.”

“Well,” says Octavian, now frowning slightly, “if you’ve got a missing heart... I _may_ know someone we can talk to. He has some experience in that area. But I will warn you – it’s going to probably end up being a bit of a detour.”

“I...” Logan hesitates for only a split second, before saying, “I don’t see why not.”

Thomas shrugs, somewhat philosophically. “It’s not as if we have anywhere else to be,” he points out. “And I’d really like my heart back to normal, to be perfectly honest.”

“So it’s settled, then,” Roman declares. “We’ll go to see Octavian’s mysterious friend, get Thomas back to his normal hearty self, and head home! Nothing can possibly go wrong with a plan as solid as that!”

“Roman,” says Janus, very seriously. “Please believe me when I tell you this, because I’m not lying in the least: I _will_ punch you. Do _not_ tempt fate any more than it needs to be tempted.”

And after a few minutes, the darkness swallows them up.


	8. patton (i)

“Home sweet home.” Octavian of Kadath lets out a little sigh of contentment as he sets the horses to graze at the edge of the forest, tying them off on some thinner trees. “Do you know, I actually forgot how much I missed this place?”

Patton squints into the darkness of the tall, thin trees, and tries to see what Octavian does, but... no. It just looks really spooky and like there could be creepy things hiding in the shadows, and he has the feeling if he tried using a flashlight the battery would immediately break rather than actually provide any light. It’s like Virgil’s room, but big and leafy and also not a room and probably even more actively trying to kill him.

“Sorry,” interjects Janus, who’s frowning and adjusting his scarf. He’d changed out of his pretty silky gown for practicality’s sake halfway through the ride over, and is now back in that turtleneck of his. “You _live_ here?”

“Used to,” Octavian corrects cheerfully. He hooks his guitar-thing over one shoulder and scoops a handful of coins from one of the horse’s saddlepacks, tucking it into a pocket. “Although if you’re born in this place, you never truly leave.” He drops his feathered cap onto his head and adjusts it so it sits at an appropriately jaunty angle, before gesturing expansively into the darkness. “Welcome, esteemed friends and companions, to the Kadath Woods!”

“Oh!” Logan says, and adjusts his glasses in that way that he does when his mind’s adjusting to something also. “I had been assuming Kadath was the _town_.”

“It’s the forest,” says Octavian. “And the mountain, technically – they both fall under the fae domain. But, no – the town is called Dubh Avon.”

These are neat names, but they don’t really mean much to Patton. He tries to remember them anyway, just in case there’s a test or something later.

Octavian takes three coins, pinches them in a neat stack between two fingers and tosses them upwards, sending them spinning and glinting through the darkness. They land in a cluster of three on the ground, and the arrow stamped on the centermost one is pointing off at an angle.

“Off we go, then,” he says, scooping up the coins.

And with that, they set off into the forest in the direction that his coin had indicated. It’s _really_ dark out, but they can sort of see where they’re going. Well, they can see where Octavian is, and he’s leading them and also seems to know what he’s doing. He’s also a lot less talkative, for some reason. He’s got a weirdly serious but also really determined look on his handsome face.

Also, Patton can hear things in the forest around them. It’s hard to make out what they are, exactly, but there’s a lot of distant howls and growls and some heavy breathing that’s a bit too close for comfort. A lot too close for comfort, really – although nothing actually does show up. He wonders why that is, and if Octavian has anything to do with it. It’s hard to tell.

“So,” says Janus once they’ve been going for a while like this, “as long as we’re out here, walking along with nothing to do – Thomas, you seem coherent and cognizant enough. Let’s talk about the sequence of events that led up to us being here.”

Thomas winces a bit. “Okay,” he agrees, with only a bit of reluctance, “yeah. So, first of all... Virgil?”

“Mhm?”

“...You were right about the whole making-the-pie thing. I _really_ shouldn’t have done that.”

“ _Yeah,_ ” Virgil says, extremely pointedly.

“I think we’re far, far past that,” Janus replies drily. “You ate the pie, and went to bed, and that’s where our memories seem to diverge. What do you remember from after that?”

“Not much,” Thomas admits with a frown. “I remember hearing the Erlking’s voice, and then I was in the kitchen and making some kind of... mixture?” He hesitates for a second, his foot hovering above the ground, before he shakes his head and keeps on walking. “No idea what that was about.”

“Mm, yes.” Janus frowns. “I _was_ meaning to ask about the shoe polish. That’s been haunting me for the last few days, as a matter of fact. Please tell me you didn’t drink any of that.”

“Drink the pharmakon?” Thomas asks, like he’s commenting on the weather. “I don’t think I did. It wasn’t meant for me.” He blinks, shakes his head again. “Oh. Oh, that’s _weird,_ that was like I wasn’t even me for a second there... did I just say _pharmakon?_ What does that even mean?”

“You did.” Virgil’s eyes are narrowed. “Thomas, this might be a stupid question, but... do you think you might be possessed?”

“Would I know if I was?” Thomas asks, now looking a bit panicked. It’s kind of just like normal, with Virgil making Thomas all anxious about things that might not even matter! Except it’s nothing like normal because Virgil’s only doing it through saying stuff, not _feeling_ stuff, and this might matter. A lot, actually.

“Can we focus for a moment?” Logan says. (The answer to this is no, obviously, but it’s really nice that he’s still trying.) “Thomas. Is there anything _else_ you remember?”

“A forest,” says Thomas. “This one, maybe? And then, a boat, and someone took me up the mountain on his horse. And... he made fun of me because I’d never ridden a horse before.”

“Really?” says Roman. “I could’ve sworn we had at some point.”

“Yeah, when I was _twelve,_ ” Thomas says. “But, uh – he said a few things about mirrors and people, which... may have to do with that whole alternate-universe people thing? And then I ended up in the castle and the Erlking...” He shudders slightly, as if the memory is making him faintly nauseous. “He said he accepted the trade, whatever that means, and... and he took my body. I stayed there for about a week?”

“I see. Some kind of time dilation effect with this world,” Logan mutters to himself, like he’s taking audible notes, then, louder, “And then?”

“Well, then I escaped,” says Thomas, with the tone of voice of someone stating the blatantly obvious.

“You escaped?” Roman prompts after a second where Thomas just doesn’t expand on this.

“And I went back home and fainted from exhaustion on the front step,” Thomas adds. “I think. That seems like the sort of thing I’d do.” He glances around at all of them. “...and then it’s kind of nothing until the town, although that’s, uh, blurry. The first _really_ clear thing I remember is waking up in the bedroom with Pat and Virge. That’s about it.”

“But. You escaped all on your own?” Logan clarifies after another moment of silence. His tone is tinged with faint disbelief, which is kind of unfair because Thomas can do a lot of things if he just puts his mind to it. Including escaping from a fairy castle and a terrifying magic king guy and running down a mountain and crossing an entire dimension to make it all the way back to his house in complete darkness – actually, no. Patton’s suspension of disbelief does have a limit, as it turns out. What Thomas is saying is _wild._

“No, I... I had help,” Thomas says, very slowly. He bites his lip. “Okay, why is it so hard to think about this? This is like – it’s like I’m trying to read a book, but the handwriting’s terrible and it’s also it’s written in freaking _Esperanto_ or something, and also someone keeps pulling it away from me every time I see a word I recognize!”

“That’s what we’re hoping to remedy,” Octavian points out as they pause again for him to throw three coins into the air and search for the one that lands in the middle. This time, it seems to be pointing in a wildly different direction to where they had been initially heading. Octavian frowns to himself, and mutters something darkly under his breath as he scoops up the coins, before adding, “if he’d just _stop moving around._ ”

Logan looks kind of mildly furious at the fact that they’re just sort of following coins around in an empty forest in the early hours of the morning, which is probably the furthest thing from ‘scientific’ that it’s possible to be. Patton thinks that since this world is more Roman’s sort of place than his, they should just do whatever Roman’s doing. Which happens to be following Octavian! So following Octavian it is.

“Uh,” says Roman, as they progress deeper into the forest. “Hm, uh... how about this? Channel Logan.”

“I’m right here,” says Logan. “You don’t _need_ to channel me; I can provide my own input easily enough.”

“Not what I meant. Thomas, just state the things you know to be completely perfectly true in every way. Maybe we can figure some stuff out based on it.”

“The words you’re looking for are ‘empirical’ and ‘extrapolate’,” Logan provides, pinching the bridge of his nose between two fingers. “Not that you care.”

He’s kind of right because probably none of them actually _do_ care, but Patton doesn’t tell him that. It’d just make him feel bad, and now’s really not the time to make Logan feel bad, not with all the stress that he (and all of them) are under right now.

“Um. Okay, just the facts. Fact number one – someone helped me escape from the Erlking’s castle the first time I was there,” Thomas says, scratching his neck absently. “Fact two... it wasn’t the same person that brought me there. They were shorter, for one thing.”

“Okay, there! You see?” Roman points at Thomas. “Now we’re getting somewhere!”

“Are we, though?” Virgil says.

“We are.” Octavian sounds distracted yet strangely reassuring. He tosses a single coin up into the air, squinting as it seems to hang for a split-second longer than it should. “I assure you, our destination is well within reach.”

“Not what I meant, but I appreciate the update,” Virgil says. “Uh, keep up the navigation thing, bard guy. You’re doing great, probably?”

“I agree with Virgil.” Logan is frowning down at his midnight blue ankle-length dress thing that he hasn’t had an opportunity to change out of yet. Actually, most of them haven’t had the chance or just haven’t bothered to change out of their fairy banquet clothes – Patton actually really likes the soft fabric of the pants and dress shirt he’d managed to find for himself, although he had reclaimed his usual hoodie from Janus at the earlier opportunity. He just feels naked without it for some reason! Hang on, what’s Logan agreeing about, again?

“I fail to see how knowing the approximate height of your mysterious rescuer benefits us in any way,” he’s saying.

“It probably doesn’t, but it’s better than nothing,” Thomas points out. “Right? It’s not like I can remember anything else.”

“Are you sure?” probes Janus, looking like he very much wishes he could be dialled directly into the ‘things Thomas is forgetting and denying to himself’ corner of Thomas’s brain right now, as opposed to cut off and physically present in every possible way. “No details, no vague recollections, nothing...?

Thomas has nothing more to add, other than a look of intense concentration and exasperation and a frustrated shake of the head.

Roman lets out an equally frustrated huff of a sigh, and pulls a face in Octavian’s direction. “Hopefully this friend of yours will be able to shed some light on the situation.”

“That’s the hope,” Octavian replies, and pauses as he draws out another three coins from his side-pouch. He jingles them around absently in his cupped hands for a second, looking distracted.

“What’s up with the coins, anyway?” Remus asks, ducking down to snatch one from Octavian’s pouch. Octavian, who apparently has the patience of a saint or an angel or something, is unconcerned by having Remus’s fingers near his waist, and even tosses him another one.

“It’s a charm,” he says, losing the distracted look. “An extremely basic one, but those tend to be the most effective, in my experience. You use it to find things you’ve lost.”

“And what are you looking for?” Remus tilts his head at him curiously. “Your sanity? Because holy shit, we’ve been wandering around here for literally forever now, freezing our tits off, and I _swear_ – fuck, shit, goddamn, ass, cock, etcetera – all these trees look exactly the same.”

“Um, I apologize for my intrusive thoughts,” Thomas tells Octavian, a bit weakly. “Usually, nobody can hear them.”

“Believe me, I’ve heard worse,” Octavian says with a little quirk of his lips, although he still seems pretty on-edge and a lot gloomier than he had been when they’d been going up the mountain. “Compared to some of the crowds I’ve performed for, Remus comes off as positively Benedictine.”

“Ouch!” Remus pantomimes being shot in the chest, staggering against a tree with a dramatic little swoon. “I have absolutely _no_ idea what that means, but god _damn_ does it hurt. Thomas, please prepare for me upping my game. By like, a million percent.”

“Ah,” remarks Octavian, sounding a touch regretful. “I appear to have encouraged him.” He glances over at Thomas. “I do hope that’s not...?”

“Don’t worry about it,” says Roman, sighing. “He’s pretty much always like this. You probably couldn’t make him worse if you tried.”

“Don’t let that stop you!” Remus exclaims, pushing himself blithely away from the tree and jogging a few steps to keep pace with the rest of them. “ _Making me worse_ is actually highly encouraged.”

“I... will keep that in mind.” Octavian tosses the three coins into the air again, but this time, only two of them go clattering to the ground. For some reason, the final coin just hangs in the air, spinning slowly in place.

Everyone stops, falling silent. Octavian regards the spinning coin with some satisfaction, and then looks up – past it, and into the forest. “There you are,” he says.

“Here I am,” comes the somewhat acidic reply.

And out of the darkness comes the rather alarming figure of a man who looks more plant and dirt than flesh and blood. The ragged remains of what was once probably a luxurious velvet green-and-silver cloak hang from his shoulders, mud-stained and mold-covered. There are what look like actual animals of some sort nesting in his hair, although it’s hard to tell what sort of animals they are, exactly. In one sharp, precise movement, his hand shoots out to snatch the spinning coin from the air.

Even under all of the layers of grime and moss and dirt, it’s hard to miss his striking resemblance to Octavian of Kadath. They’ve got the same dark skin and the same curly hair and the same gleam of intelligence in their eyes. They’re even the same height. They could be brothers.

“You needed me for something?” asks this new person, crossing his arms. “Or are you just here to taunt me some more?”

He’s got Octavian’s voice, too. Except it’s lower, hoarser – like he ate a lot of rocks or maybe screamed for a solid couple of hours without pausing for breath. He also really does _not_ look pleased that they’re there. Or maybe he’s just not pleased with Octavian, since he doesn’t know the rest of them.

“Ah,” says Logan, with the air of someone who’s just figured something out. “I see.”

And Remus seems to make the same connection. His eyes go wide with excitement, and he grabs Roman’s arm, flailing wildly. “ _Hey!_ ” he hisses. “That’s _him!_ That’s me!”

And – oh, right! That does kind of make sense, now that Patton stops to think about it. A lot of sense. Gosh, this whole alternate-universe doubles thing is going to take a lot of getting used to.

“Are you guys... twins?” Thomas asks slowly, looking between the two of them.

At this, the other man lets out an angry, feral-sounding snort of something almost but not entirely unlike amusement. Octavian makes a ‘ _well it’s a bit complicated_ ’ face and an appropriate noise and hand-wiggly gesture to go along with it.

“No,” snaps the mossy forest man. “No, we are not twins. He is _not_ my brother and he never will be and _we are not related_.”

“ _Rrrrright_ ,” says Virgil, somewhat dubiously. “So, the fact that you look completely identical apart from, uh, all the mud and dirt and grime is... what, a fun little coincidence?”

Octavian hesitates visibly for a second, and then brushes his curly, wild hair away from his face. And more specifically, away from where it’s been hanging over his ears – because as it turns out, his ears are longer than you’d expect, and they taper off to delicate points.

“Oh! You’re a fairy!” Patton blurts, startled.

“More than that,” Roman says, taking a step back, understanding blooming across his face. “You’re a _changeling,_ aren’t you? Meaning that you’re...”

“Absolutely correct,” says the man in the ragged cape, with such audible bitterness it almost hurts to hear. “My name was Octavian of Dubh Avon, and this is the _thing_ that stole my life nearly thirty years ago.”

Octavian’s voice is soft and pleading. “I’ve told you; you can go back whenever you want. I’m more than happy to show you around, reintroduce you to the human world...”

“And _yet,_ ” the other Octavian retorts, “you continue to use my name, and dance and sing your merry way around Dubh Avon like you own the damned place. What would they say if I showed your face in town, looking like _this?_ ”

“I’ll take you to the river; wash the forest away from you,” begs Octavian – the original Octavian. Or maybe not? The one they’d met first, anyway. Fairy-Octavian. Octfaevian. He sounds like he’s had this argument a million times, and is only just going through the motions at this point out of habit. There’s a thin, lost-sounding thread of heartbreak in his voice. “I’ll get you human clothes – the best I can buy. I’ll show you how to shoe a horse like humans do, how to dance without drawing your friends into a trance, how to laugh and sing to the beat of Heli’s music. Just come with me, _please._ ”

“You’re too much of a human now for the Erlking to want you, and I’m not human enough for the town to want me,” the forest-Octavian snaps. “Your continuous pretence that things can be any different – it makes me want to choke you. To snap your neck. To bury you in iron and leave you to burn in the ground. To feed your writhing body to whatever _thing_ the court is trying to push back into the darkness, so nobody ever has to think about you ever again.”

“Do you really want me gone that badly?” the fairy-Octavian says, sounding a bit stricken.

The forest-Octavian stares balefully at his changeling counterpart for a long, long moment. “What do you want? You wouldn’t come here if there wasn’t something else you wanted to take from me, so please. Just get on with it.”

“Don’t you care who we are?” Roman asks, sounding a bit affronted.

“Not in the least,” he replies, not even looking over at Roman.

Remus looks a bit less delighted than before. But only a bit. His expression has shifted from ‘outright horniness’ to ‘thoughtful horniness’, which is only a slight improvement.

“We need to speak to the Fisher-King,” says fairy-Octavian. “And you know how he is to find.”

Forest-Octavian laughs wildly, and flings his arms out, looking annoyed and frustrated. “ _That’s it?_ That’s what you needed from me?” He curses loudly, in a melodic, high-pitched language, for a full fifteen seconds, and then points firmly and confidently in a seemingly-random direction. “He’s waiting at the river. _Obviously._ Now get out of my sight – you make me _sick_.”

The first Octavian nods, and takes a step backwards, and then hesitates. “I really am sorry,” he says lowly. “But I didn’t ask to be made. And I didn’t ask to be swapped out for you.”

Forest-Octavian doesn’t seem to consider this a reasonable sort of argument. He just glares and points into the darkness once more, before whirling around in a flurry of rags and moss and spite and stalking away in the opposite direction. It’s pretty clear he wants nothing to do with them, which is a shame, because he also looks in pretty dire need of a hug.

The only Octavian left (and this is a good turn of events, because things had been starting to get confusing with two of them) lets out the longest and most exhausted sigh imaginable, and leans against a nearby tree. He adjusts his h air with one hand, tucking his pointed ears back within the mess of curls so they’re no longer visible, and then just breathes for a while. He also looks like he needs a hug.

“I’m sorry you had to see that,” he tells them after a moment, voice uncomfortably dull.

“Don’t worry about it,” Patton reassures, patting at his arm. “We all have bad days! One time I got real angry about community service and video games and I turned into a giant frog monster. And lemme tell you, that’s the sort of thing I’d rather frog-get about! You’re fine, kiddo.”

There’s a dangerous moment there where Patton’s afraid that he went and stepped in it, and said the wrong thing. But then Octavian smiles, very slowly. “I don’t understand a single word you just said,” he says. “But I think I understand and appreciate the sentiment. Thank you, Patton.”

“Anytime,” replies Patton. “So let’s go and track down this Fish King of yours, so he can school us on whatever we need to know.” A pause. “School, because, you know... fish-?”

He’s playing up the goofiness a bit, but sometimes the goofs need to be exaggerated. It makes things feel normal, or less bad. And even if Octavian doesn’t know them very well, he does seem to appreciate a good pun, judging by his small snort of amusement. “Now, that was truly dreadful.”

“All the best jokes are,” he says, and offers Octavian a hand. Octavian takes it and allows himself to be tugged over to the rest of them. “Which way was that river again?”

Octavian points in the appropriate direction, and (still allowing his hand to be held, which is really sweet, actually!) starts leading them off to it. Almost immediately, the familiar sound of rushing water can be heard. It’s far-off, but they’re definitely heading in the right direction.

“So that was your...” Roman pauses, clearly unsure of what to say. “Counterpart? Which is weird because you’re kind of _my_ counterpart, so it’s like. A whole reflection of a reflection thing. There’s a lot going on here.”

“I suppose so.” Octavian sighs. “As you say – it’s complicated.”

He drops Patton’s hand with a slightly apologetic look, and reaches for his guitar-thing, swinging it around so it’s in his hands rather than across his back. Oh! Another song. Good – Patton had missed the last one, and Roman hadn’t seemed all that enthusiastic about re-enacting it.

Octavian strums a slow, simple chord, and opens his mouth like he’s about to start singing. And then he shuts it, looking frustrated. “No.” He grimaces, and shakes his head. “No, that’s not... it’s not done yet.”

“Writer’s block?” asks Thomas sympathetically. “I feel that.”

“Probably not as much as I do,” Roman mutters.

“Something like that.” Octavian stows his guitar-thing back to its position on his back. “I’ve been working on it for, well... quite a while now. It’s a story I need to tell. Perhaps it’s a bit tragic for anyone to ever pay me to sing, but not everything’s meant to be shared.”

Patton doesn’t know quite how to respond to this. He _could_ say some sort of vague platitude like ‘you’ll get there eventually!’, and, actually, that’s what’s on the tip of his tongue, but Octavian looks so sad and frustrated that he bites it back. Instead, he just bumps his arm with Octavian and smiles at him, lips pressed together in sympathy. Wishing he could do something to help this strange musical fairy man.

“For the record,” says Remus, thoughtfully. “I think I _would_ fuck him.”

Octavian’s face goes instantly blank.

“ _Remus,_ ” snaps Thomas.

“The other Octavian,” Remus clarifies. “The hotter one. No offense, Octavian.”

“ _Yes_ , Remus,” says Virgil. “We all know your answer to the Buzzfeed ‘Can We Ask You A Really Weird Question?’ quiz. And none of us want to hear your reasoning behind it, ever again.”

“Just sayin’!” Remus shrugs like he doesn’t have a problem in the world. “The ragged, trampy forest-chique look is _great_ on me. Alt-me. He’s onto something there, I’m telling you.”

Thankfully, he does end that particular train of thought there, because Octavian’s expression is growing slowly less and less amused with each passing second.

It’s a while before they reach the point where the sound of the river rushing along merrily is as loud as it possibly can be. When they do, Octavian stops them all with a raised arm before they can push through the final barrier of shrubbery and tree branches.

“Before we do... there’s something I should mention,” he tells them. “Don’t bring up his leg.”

“His leg?” Logan says, eyes narrowing slightly in that ‘I’m remembering something important’ way he sometimes does.

“There was an incident, some hundred years ago,” explains Octavian. “It’s a bit of a sore spot for him. Ah – literally, that is. His banishment from the Court was considerably more violent than mine, and... well, there’s a reason that he spends most of the time fishing these days.”

“Don’t mention the leg, got it,” Virgil says with a faint sigh. “Why not? It’s not like this day can get any weirder or more specific.”

“Anything else?” Roman asks, and then when Octavian shakes his head, “well – what are we waiting for, then?”

“Quite,” agrees Octavian. He holds a cluster of branches to one side and they all file through, and there it is – that same river. Impossibly deep and wider than Patton remembers, and with an inky sort of darkness lurking in its depths. And the Fisher-King sits in a small boat moored at the edge of it.

Patton recognizes the boat instantly, because it’s probably the most generic boat imaginable – it’s the same boat that they arrived at the river in. It’s anyone’s guess as to how it ended up _here_ , because last they’d seen of it, it had been floating away down the river, and this is basically the opposite direction.

It’s also anyone’s guess how the Fisher-King managed to get into the boat, because honestly that stab wound on his leg looks really nasty. He shouldn’t be standing, let alone going around climbing around into strange, rickety magical boats. Although he doesn’t look all that concerned about it, or in pain. He’s humming to himself gently, and fiddling with the string of his long wooden fishing rod. Completely unconcerned.

He’s got the pointed ears and otherworldly shine that all of the human-looking fairies they’ve met so far have had, but also? He looks... kind of old. Not _old-_ old, but aged. His hair is white and he has the beginnings of a scruffy, badly-kept beard, and his clothes, although fancy and decorated with all sorts of water-y patterns and colors, look semi-ancient and almost dated. Like they come from an earlier sort of medieval than the one that they’re in right now.

Patton feels bad about disturbing someone who seems to be so genuinely peaceful and content, but Octavian seems to have no such qualms. He lets out a shout of greeting, and starts jogging towards the riverbank, cape fluttering lightly behind him.

“Octavian!” exclaims the Fisher-King, eyes lighting up as he turns slowly in their direction. His voice is slightly hoarse, like he hasn’t spoken to anyone for days, but the joy is unmistakable. “Look at you, my boy – you’ve grown so much!”

Octavian splashes into the river, careless of the mud and his clothes, clambering into the boat with a wide grin stretching across his face. He reaches across to clasp the Fisher-King’s aged hands tightly in his own. It is really astoundingly adorable.

The seven of them, by a mutual sort of silent agreement, decide to hang back until the two of them have an acceptable amount of reunion time. Well, Remus isn’t part of this agreement, but Virgil grabs his arm and forcibly holds him back.

“Do you think that he might be another one of these mirror-people?” Patton wonders quietly, trying to prevent himself from bouncing and squealing. He settles for rocking enthusiastically back and forth on the balls of his feet. “I mean, everyone else we’ve met has been. But I don’t think he’s you, Virgil, not enough eyeshadow. And he doesn’t give off Janus vibes, either.” He squints. “...Maybe Leo?”

Everyone turns to look at him in flat, blank disbelief, even Remus. Patton thinks that’s a little unfair, because he genuinely doesn’t know! It’s not like the name is much to work off, and he looks so _old_ that it’s hard to make out any details like the eyes or hair or anything.

“Pat,” says Virgil. “The Fisher-King couldn’t more obviously be you.”

“What?”

“Fishing is, like, the _most_ dad thing to do,” Thomas says. “And apparently that’s all this guy does, every day, all day.”

“And he’s squishing Octavian’s cheeks right now,” Roman adds. “Total dad.” Patton looks over and – huh, okay, that _is_ happening. They may have a point. Just a bit of one.

They give them a couple more seconds of reunion and catching up, and then Logan, apparently rapidly losing patience, clears his throat pointedly.

“Ah!” Octavian seems to remember their existence, and gestures towards them. “I’ve made some new acquaintances! They happen to be the reason I’m visiting, as a matter of fact. – Not that it isn’t excellent to see you,” he adds. “There’s just always so much going on...”

“Mortals?” asks the Fisher-King with an unreadable expression, tilting head oh-so-slowly to one side.

Octavian looks unsure for a moment, and then nods. “I believe so.”

Logan steps forward to address the Fisher-King from as close as he can get without actually getting into the water. “Thomas is having some... heart problems.”

“Octavian said you might be able to help,” Roman adds, eagerly, bounding up to stand next to him. “Can you do anything for us?”

The Fisher-King hums thoughtfully to himself, gaze travelling slowly over each of them in turn. He doesn’t comment on their near-identical appearances, which is polite of him.

“Well,” he says eventually. “I don’t know about _help_ , but I’ll see what I can do. Thomas, was it? Come here, my boy. Let’s get a good look at you.”

Thomas exchanges a glance of trepidation with Virgil, but Octavian gives him an encouraging smile and nod as he swings his legs over the side of the boat and splashes his way back to shore to join the rest of them. Roman pats Thomas on the shoulder, and Remus punches him in the arm in a way that might leave bruising.

Thomas winces, rubbing his shoulder, but says, “Sure. Just a sec, then,” and toes his sneakers and socks off, before rolling up his sweatpants and stepping out into the river. He clambers carefully into the boat, and sits down opposite the Fisher-King, gripping both sides as it rocks and settles.

Patton watches somewhat nervously as the Fisher-King gives him a kind smile, and then places his hand gently on his chest. He’s pretty sure no version of him, anywhere, would hurt Thomas! On purpose, that is. Because... he knows he isn’t perfect. But also. Logan’s other-self had done a lot of really bad stuff to Thomas, and they’d had to _lie_ to get him out of there and... well, Patton’s a little worried. Just a smidge. He’s ready to jump in there at the slightest sign of danger, probably.

But he doesn’t need to, apparently, because all that happens is that Thomas’s eyelids flicker shut briefly and he lets out a soft noise of slight discomfort, before the Fisher-King sighs lightly and they both straighten up.

The Fisher-King is frowning. “The good news is that this isn’t a fatal sort of affliction.”

“Oh, neat,” says Thomas, and waves over at everyone standing on the riverbank. “Hey, guys! Looks like I’m not dying!”

“Whoo!” Patton cheers, thumbs-upping as hard as he possibly can.

“Okay, the bar _has_ to be higher than that,” Virgil mutters.

“However, I’m afraid I cannot do anything for you,” the Fisher-King continues, which puts a very fast damper on the sudden good mood. “This is... remarkably outside of my area of expertise, for one thing. And for another, what has been done to you -” He taps one long, wrinkled finger twice over Thomas’s heart. “- was done by someone whose magic opposes mine in just about every way possible.”

“Oh.” Thomas sounds just about as bewildered as Patton feels. “All right, then. Is there... something I can do, then?”

“Yes,” says the Fisher-King. “Go speak to him.” He gazes out across the river, which is wide and deep and much more turbulent than it had been when they’d first arrived. “The Two-Faced King resides on the far side of these waters. The specifics evade me. He should be happy enough to speak with you, at the very least.”

“But can he put me back to normal?” asks Thomas. “I don’t think I like feeling like this. It’s...” He shudders slightly. “...way too calm in my head. And the shape of everything isn’t right. It’s like there’s someone missing. Six someones,” he adds, glancing over at everyone on the riverbank.

“I’m sure he _can_ set things to rights,” the Fisher-King says. “The only real question is, does he want to?”

“Wait, _does_ he?” Virgil asks.

“Probably not,” Octavian mutters darkly.

“Ah,” says Logan, with an irritated little adjustment of his glasses. “Another side-quest. Fabulous.”

“Ayy, _side-quest,_ ” Patton grins.

“Nothing ventured, nothing gained,” Roman says brightly. “It’s off to find the Two-Faced King for us, then!”

There’s a brief confusing scuffle between everyone as Thomas gets off the boat and everyone tries to work out where to go and what to do. Octavian says he’s going to stay behind and catch up with the Fisher-King some more, since apparently he doesn’t get on with the Two-Faced King too well either. Something about not picking sides and some sort of sacrifice that Patton doesn’t quite catch the full gist of.

So they all exchange goodbyes with Octavian and the Fisher-King, since they might not end up seeing either of them again if everything goes to plan. Patton hugs Octavian. He seems to be surprised that he’s on the receiving end of a Patton-hug, but hugs back pretty enthusiastically. He smells like wet soil and horse and is surprisingly bony, but he’s pretty good at the whole hugging thing!

“Is there a bridge or other means of crossing anywhere nearby?” Janus asks.

“Most people simply walk across,” the Fisher-King replies. “There hasn’t been a death in this river for years now – you’ll most likely be fine.”

“Walk across... the river.” Virgil looks over at the water, and visibly shudders.

“Would it be possible to borrow your boat?” Logan requests, pragmatic as ever. “I believe we did so earlier. It’ll only be for a few minutes, and if past behavior is anything to extrapolate from, you’ll be able to retrieve it quite promptly.”

The Fisher-King chuckles softly, and starts re-baiting the end of his line, the rod resting carefully across his lap. “It really isn’t as deep as you seem to think it is.”

Janus lets out a noise that means _I’m not convinced and none of you should be, either,_ but Remus is already rushing in. He splashes into the water, past the Fisher-King’s boat and towards the middle of the river, and... he’s only waist-deep.

“I’m freezing my balls off!” he announces loudly, which means that everything’s probably fine, although Patton does hear Virgil mutter something low and worried about bull sharks.

Sufficiently reassured by this, e starts taking off his shoes and socks. Remus is already on the other side of the river, which is really kind of weird because Patton could have sworn it was wider than that.

Cautiously, everyone wades across, and within the blink of an eye, they’re on the other side, shaking off water and wringing out their soaked pants. The Fisher-King and Octavian wave them goodbye from the opposite bank, and Octavian points exaggeratedly in the direction they need to go towards.

“Thank you!” Patton yells, hoping he can be heard over the sound of rushing water. “For everything! You guys rock!”

The others also wave goodbye, and then they’re off, heading along the riverbank in search of yet another strange and ominous king. This makes it, what, the third one so far? There’s a _lot_ of kings around these parts. Shouldn’t they be rationing out the kings, keeping it on a one-king-at-a-time basis, just in case they need one of them for a reign-y day?

“Okay, so,” Thomas says. “This ‘Two-Faced King’ guy. That’s definitely Janus’s mirror-person, yeah?”

“What a ridiculous suggestion,” Janus replies dryly. “A king with two faces? That bears no connection to me or my name in the _slightest._ I really don’t know where you get these ideas, Thomas, _truly._ ”

“Just making sure,” Thomas says, with an exhausted sort of laugh. His hand creeps up to rest just above his heart, and he continues walking in silence for a few minutes, an expression of faint worry on his face.

They’re following the curve of the river, which appears to stretch out forever over the horizon. It’s either really super late or really super early, depending on what sort of mindset you subscribed to. The sky is a dark dusk-y sort of color, and the sound of birds around them is scattered and sleepy.

“What do you want to do when we get back home?” Roman asks Thomas thoughtfully after a while of this.

“I...” Thomas blinks. “Uh, maybe take a shower? Eat some non-fairy junk food? I’m not sure – shouldn’t you know?”

Patton shrugs. “We’re kinda out of sync with you right now, kiddo.”

“For once, we’re not thinking precisely what you’re thinking. We can only guess,” Logan adds.

“Okay then, lemme turn that one back on you,” Thomas says. “What do _you_ want to do when we get back?” He waves vaguely in the direction of the rest of them. “All of you, I mean.”

“Fairy-proof the house,” Roman says instantly. “Horseshoes over the doors, buy an iron sword or six – you can never be too careful.”

“That’s my line,” Virgil complains lightly. “And... yeah, that. But also sleep for a million years.” He pauses, seems to realize what he just said, and shudders. “Maybe not a million years. Maybe we should stay awake for the rest of our collective life, just to make sure something like this never happens again.”

“I concur with sleep,” Janus adds, and sighs. “When I told you to take some time off for yourself, that was _not_ a cue for you to get kidnapped so we could all go on some... grand magical _quest_ together. Remember that next time, please?”

“I’ll try,” Thomas says. “But, uh, no guarantees. Logan?”

“I’m torn,” Logan admits. “On the one hand, I would greatly like to delve deeper into the mythological basis of this world we’ve found ourselves in, to see if there’s any real historical basis to anything that’s happened. On the other... this is, in a word, disturbing.”

“If you need a hand with repressing anything...” Janus offers.

“No. We need to know what we’re dealing with in future.” Logan shakes his head. “Let’s not get too ahead of ourselves. We need to get out of this, first.”

Patton’s next! He took some time to think about this, and he thinks he has a pretty good answer. “I think... a sleepover. With all of your friends! Or maybe just a few of them.” He shrugs. “Playing truth or dare and painting your nails and eating pizza while watching Ghibli movies sounds really good right now.”

“Thomas is in his thirties. Is truth or dare still an acceptable sleepover party game?” Logan asks.

“Yes, absolutely, how _dare_ you suggest it isn’t,” goes Roman.

“God, I miss my friends,” Thomas agrees, a bit wistfully. “And they’re not going to believe that any of this happened, are they?”

“Almost certainly not,” Janus says.

“Joan and Talyn must be worried out of their minds by now,” Virgil mutters, back hunching in a way that looks both reflexive and incredibly painful. “I _know_ there’s nothing we can do about it, but I hate making them feel like this.”

“We’ll be done with this soon,” Patton promises. “All we need to do is talk to this other King person, and we’ll be back home and doing all of these things! Except maybe repressing things, that seems unhealthy.”

Janus mutters something that sounds like “ _look who’s talking”_ but Patton chooses to ignore it because a) he’s right, b) this is super not the time to get into that.

And now all six of them have had their respective turns, which means there’s only one of them left who hasn’t stated their opinion and... oh no, it’s probably going to be something really disgusting, isn’t it? Patton kind of wants to cover his ears but that would probably be rude –

“Do I have to go home?” Remus asks.

This brings everyone up short for a few long seconds.

“Uh.” Thomas blinks. “What do you mean by that?”

“Well, Octavian actually likes my presence,” Remus says. “Or he’s pretending to, at least, which – good enough, right?” He shrugs. “I don’t know! This place is ruled by a vicious, inhuman king who definitely has a flower kink and almost _certainly_ has a control kink. There’s horrible things in the forest, and a castle full of fairies to seduce and fuck and get enchanted by, and that’s not even getting started on everything that’s _not_ near the river!”

“You... want to stay here?” Thomas asks carefully.

“Not sure yet,” Remus says. “Probably. Like I said, I like this place. I’ll get back to you about that.”

Everyone exchanges glances. Nobody seems to know what to think about this, so nobody says anything.

They keep on walking. Eventually, Thomas strikes up a quiet conversation with Logan about something-or-other but Patton isn’t paying attention. He _can’t_ pay attention. There’s just so much to think about.

Would Remus leaving be such a bad thing? Patton doesn’t think Thomas would mind, but also he doesn’t want to make assumptions about what Thomas thinks, because that hasn’t been a great thing to do, historically speaking. But Remus is all these gross and icky thoughts and Patton has a feeling that if he disappeared then Thomas would feel a lot better on a daily basis, but _also..._

Well, Remus is a part of Thomas. If he goes missing, some other stuff might go missing too. Like when Virgil had thought that if he left Thomas would stop being anxious all the time and be happier but actually all that had happened was Thomas turning into a living disaster creature with no regard for his own life. And there’s the fact that Janus really likes Remus and would be sad if he was gone, and Roman... Patton’s not all too sure what’s going on with them right now, but he’s sure that Roman wouldn’t be all that happy if his brother left.

And then there’s the obvious question, which is – can Remus even _do_ that? It’s more than ducking out, it’s, like, _walking away._ Like a divorce, except without marriage being involved in the first place and instead of taking the dogs and kids in the separation, Remus is taking a hefty segment of Thomas’s _soul_ or something.

He’s about to open his mouth and ask something – maybe try to see what Logan thinks, maybe try to probe at Remus a bit more, but this is the point at which a dark blur crashes into Thomas from out of nowhere, causing him to yell out in alarm.

The yell becomes a startled grunt as he’s knocked over into some nearby bushes, and Virgil and Janus are immediately on the defensive – Virgil snarling and puffing up angrily and Janus wielding his canvas bag like he intends to use it as a melee weapon. Roman rushes forward, pushing aside stray foliage with a foot. “Release Thomas, you fiend!”

There is a quick, nearly-incoherent babble of something in a language that Patton doesn’t understand.

“Uh, guys... I think I’m all right, actually?” Thomas says, voice muffled, and when he sits up, everyone can see his unexpected attacker. It’s not a monster or a demon or even a wild animal. It’s a little boy. He’s small, maybe eight or nine years old at a guess. He’s got big dark eyes and messy hair and a bunch of really weird markings running up from underneath the collar of his cloak-thing. They look like swirly tattoos, but also he looks way too young to get tattoos, so maybe they’re like... fantasy temporary tattoos? Or something?

He’s currently regarding all of them with quite a lot of suspicion, and clinging to Thomas like letting go would result in a million kittens dying. It’s super cute, but also super weird because, like. Where did he even _come_ from?

“Oh shit, he’s another fairy!” Remus exclaims, pointing right at the kid’s ears. And he’s right, because they’re pointed. Just like the Erlking’s, and Octavian’s, and the Fisher-King’s.

“Don’t swear in front of the kiddo!” Patton objects.

In response to this, the dark-haired boy snaps out a short, angry burst of words directed at nobody in particular, and then buries his head in Thomas’s chest once more.

Looking faintly startled, Thomas sits up properly, so the boy’s more in his lap than lying right on top of him, and gently hugs him. “Hey, hey – you’re fine, you’re okay. Are you lost? What’s going on?”

The boy mumbles something in that same weird language, but this time it’s quieter and into Thomas’s ear and it’s hard to make out any of it.

“Do you know English?” Roman asks, coming down to kneel next to Thomas.

The fairy boy recoils away from him, hugging Thomas tighter, and says something that sounds sharp and biting that’s definitely not in English or any language Patton recognizes... which is just English, come to think of it.

Now everyone’s in a loose round arrangement that could be broadly described as a circle around Thomas and his new small friend. Not too close, because he seems pretty skittish – all in various stages of sitting, crouching and kneeling.

“You know, I think that may be Italian,” Logan says, with some interest.

“Italian?” Thomas asks. He’s preoccupied with rubbing little reassuring circles into the boy’s back.

Logan crouches down in front of the fairy boy. “ _Il principe è stupido_ ,” he pronounces solemnly, indicating Roman.

The boy stares at him for a long, long second, before breaking out into a radiant smile and babbling something in agreement with a little flap of his arms.

“Definitely Italian,” Logan surmises, sounding more than a little smug, and then his face falls. “I... do not know any Italian past that, unfortunately.”

“You learned to insult me in Italian, and nothing else?” Roman says, incredulous.

“...It was a while ago,” says Logan. “It was a less civilized time for all of us, and please, let’s not get distracted. How do you suppose a fairy child living in a medieval world came to know Italian?”

The boy says something long and complicated-sounding that ends with _bee._

Virgil shakes his head. “Yeah, I caught none of that.”

“Where are your parents?” Patton asks. “Um... _el parentos?_ ” He gestures at himself, does his brightest dad-grin and accompanying dad-pose.

The boy just looks super confused. He repeats the sentence again, and then, at their blank expressions, scowls. “Thomas,” he says, clearly, pointing at Thomas, and then he points at himself. “Bee.” A slight pause, and then he adds, “ _Ciao_.”

“Your name’s... Bee?” Patton tries. “Like the insect?”

The kid – Bee, apparently – shrugs, uncomprehending. He uncoils from Thomas ever-so-slightly, and frowns at him, patting at his face. Looking into his eyes. Trying to find something. When he doesn’t find whatever it is, he asks a question, soft and worried.

“Sorry, bud, I don’t understand,” Thomas tells him gently.

Bee scowls and grabs Thomas’s hand with both of his own, gripping onto it tightly. He mutters something soft and annoyed, and then just kind of tips over, falling into Thomas’s lap again with a distinct aura of sulkiness. Thomas tentatively ruffles his hair with his free hand, and he makes a soft, snuffling noise.

“Oh my _goodness,_ ” Patton coos, hands to his heart. “This is just the sweetest thing – the two of you are so cute and I am _absolutely_ going to start crying. Janus, do you have Thomas’s phone? We’ve got to get a picture – “

“As much as I would love to have a charming memento of this delightful experience hung and framed on the mantlepiece, all our electronics actually stopped working sometime during the river ride over,” Janus says, arms crossed lightly.

Patton deflates a bit. “Oh... well, that’s a shame.”

“Do you think this might be that other king or whatever?” Virgil asks, biting his lip. “Pat’s fantasy double guy did say he’d be on the other side of the river, and... well, we haven’t bumped into anyone else yet.”

“The-?” Roman blinks. “Well, maybe? I really thought he’d be taller.”

“No, I... I think I recognize him,” Thomas says, and glances down to where their hands are linked. “Remember how I said the person who helped me escape from the castle was shorter than me?”

“Oh!” says Patton. “Huh.”

They all stare down at Bee for a few long seconds.

“Thanks, kid,” Virgil mutters eventually, and reaches out to gently pat Bee’s back. This time, he doesn’t flinch away. “Don’t know what we would’ve done if you hadn’t got him back to us.”

Another minute or so passes before Janus says, “Well, as sweet as this all is, we still really do need to get to my counterpart and get this all over with. Do you suppose he knows where this ‘Two-Faced King’ is, or shall we just continue to all wander around with blindfolds on? – ah, my apologies, Logan, _metaphorical_ blindfolds.”

But the sound of ‘Two-Faced King’, Bee almost instantly perks up. He says something that Patton thinks means something along the lines of ‘heck yes I do, follow me right this way!’ and scrambles off Thomas’s lap, tugging him to stand up.

“Oh,” says Logan. “Well, that’s convenient, but I’m certainly not complaining.”

*

Bee leads them through the forest. He doesn’t let go of Thomas’s hand the whole time, gently pulling him along in a very direct sort of way, and he seems to be more comfortable with the rest of them, now. Within the space of less than two minutes, Remus and Janus are teaching him how to say ‘fuck’, much to Patton’s dismay. He’s taking to it with incredible enthusiasm for someone who probably has no idea whatsoever what it means.

“See, this is why I don’t babysit anymore,” Thomas says with a faint groan, after Bee pipes out a particularly loud and piercing “ _FUCK!_ ” that echoes through the trees, disturbing several birds. “...you guys have to explain this to his parents, if we ever run into them.”

“I shall delegate that particular task to Remus,” Janus proclaims with a great deal of dignity.

“Fine by me!” Remus says.

“He’s probably another one of those mirror-people, right?” Roman says, looking over at Logan.

Logan adjusts his glasses. “Mm. I have a theory.”

“Oh, thank god.” Thomas lets out a little sigh of relief. “Go ahead.”

“‘Bee’ could, just possibly, be a diminutive form of ‘Beatrice’,” he says slowly, and then winces, as if physically pained by the ambiguity. “Or at least derived from it. And he seems to exclusively speak Italian, the language in which Dante’s Divine Comedy was originally written and published. And from Dante, we get...”

“Oh! Right, that kind of makes sense,” agrees Thomas. “Virgil and Beatrice were the secondary characters in that, weren’t they?”

Virgil mutters something angry and opinionated about unrequited heterosexual love and creepy Italian poets under his breath, before he seems to understand the proper implications of what they’ve just said. He performs an admirably comical double-take. “What? You – that’s _me_?”

“It’s just a theory,” Logan reiterates. “And I will admit to it being a bit of a stretch. But really, who else could it be, at this point?”

Again, Patton can see it now that he’s looking. The shade of Bee’s tattoos and the shade of Virgil’s preferred eyeshadow match up perfectly. And the way that he’s still clinging to Thomas’s hand insistently and glaring out at the forest around them with protective ferocity...

Bee looks up and catches Virgil staring at him. He frowns, then sticks his tongue out at him. Almost reflexively, Virgil does the same.

“Ohh, same brain cell,” Roman says, delighted.

“The resemblance is rather uncanny,” Logan concludes, with the hint of a smile in his tone, if not on his face.

The trees around them change as they progress. The tall, willowy-pale trunks that have been everywhere up until now have thinned out, and have been replaced with bristly, lush green ones that resemble pine trees far more closely. Even the bird song sounds less alien, more familiar. If Patton forgets the river to their left and the medieval town some distance down it, he could easily imagine they’re back in Florida, trekking through that forest once more.

Bee breaks off from alternating between swearing in English enthusiastically and teaching Remus and a reluctantly intrigued Logan what sound like filthy Italian curses to tug furiously on Thomas’s hand and point proudly ahead. There’s a little house nestled there, in amidst the pines. It’s a quaint, cramped little thing – more like an afterthought than a proper home. There are thick curtains drawn across the windows and no lights on.

Everybody stops walking.

“I guess... this is where the Two-Faced King lives?” guesses Thomas, scratching his head.

Bee burbles what seems to be an affirmative.

“Well... I suppose we ring the doorbell,” Patton says.

“Or knock, more likely,” Logan corrects.

“No need,” comes the voice of two people speaking at once in perfect unison from right behind them. “I’m right here.”

Virgil lets out an angry, strangled noise, and spins to face the people – oh wait, hang on, it’s only one person? – jerking his hands up in an aborted little motion like he’s ready to throw down now and here. “Wh – seriously, what is _with_ all of you people and popping up suddenly to scare the shit out of us?”

“Speak for yourself, I wasn’t scared,” Roman scoffs.

The Two-Faced King is – well, he’s definitely Janus’s mirror, Patton can say that for sure! And it’s not just because he’s a bit strange to look at. Not that it’s a bad thing. Janus is strange and maybe a bit scary to look at, at first, but once you get over the initial shock of ‘oh gosh, snake face!’ you realize that his scales are really pretty and he has a nice smile when he’s not being all acidic and standoffish.

And it’s kind of like that for this guy, too. At first, he _looks_ like a pretty normal person – er, fairy. Dark skin, pointed ears, on the short side, calm, stern gaze. He’s even got a little crown perched on his neatly parted hair! Although it _is_ on the rusty side. But the thing is, if Patton shifts his head even the slightest bit, the Two-Faced King’s face shifts and blends and all of a sudden, he’s looking at a completely different person. His hair is lighter and messy and his gaze is confused, not stern, and he’s got a decent helping of freckles all over his cheeks and nose. And then if Patton tilts his head again, it’s back to the other face. It’s like one of those holographic bookmarks that changes when you move it around.

This is probably why he’s called ‘the Two-Faced King’, come to think of it.

He’s carrying a covered basket in the crook of one arm, and has his other hand placed on one hip in a distinctly indifferent sort of gesture.

“Oh, it’s you,” he says. His voice sounds doubled, layered over itself twofold. “You’re not supposed to be here.” And then he catches sight of Bee, and one of his faces looks relieved while the other looks furious. “So _that’s_ where you went,” he says, and then starts speaking in slightly stilted-sounding Italian.

Bee brightens, and responds in kind. He doesn’t let go of Thomas’s hand, but they go back and forth like this for a bit. Thomas’s name is mentioned several times, and also something about messes and knots, although that could mean anything.

“Are you two going to keep blabbering on at each other in Fantasy Italian?” Janus snaps eventually, annoyed, apparently not at all impressed with his mirror-self.

“My apologies,” says the Two-Faced King, who doesn’t actually seem all that apologetic about it. His face flickers through amused and that same strange fury. “What brings you here?”

Patton waves. “Uh, hi. We were told you could do something about our friend’s heart situation...?”

The Two-Faced King takes a long, long moment to stare at Thomas. Both of his faces do. There’s something unnervingly intense about it.

“Yes,” he says, eventually. “One heart swapped out for another, willingly given. A simple little charm – I remember it.”

“So you _did_ do this to me,” Thomas breathes. “That’s... really strange. I can almost remember it.”

The Two-Faced King actually laughs. He hikes up his basket higher up his arm. “Oh no, dear Thomas. I’m rather afraid you did this to yourself.”

Thomas pales a bit, and takes a step back. Bee glances up at him, eyes big and dark.

“Okay, we’re going to need a bit of clarification,” Remus says after a second. “Unless you want me to start enacting some extreme X-rated violence onto your person. I’ve never done that sort of thing in real life before, but this seems like a good place to start. What are you even _talking_ about? Who are you supposed to be?”

“Oh, I am completely irrelevant,” replies the Two-Faced King. “And certainly not the one you want to be talking to.”

“You’re maybe the third or fourth person today to tell us that,” Virgil retorts, visibly on the edge of Losing It Completely, Possibly With A Side Serving Of That X-Rated Violence Remus Had Been Talking About. “Seriously, do you mirror-people just get a kick out of sending us running around the forest like some weird fantasy-flavored pass-the-parcel?”

“Also, if you’re not the person we want to talk to, who _is_?” Roman demands.

“That would be me,” says someone with a very distinctive Scottish accent.

Bee exclaims in excitement, but Patton isn’t paying attention, because at the sound of this person’s voice he feels his heart speed up. He doesn’t know why, but he feels... no, he doesn’t know what he feels. Dizzy, maybe? There’s some weird sort of anticipation and something that he can’t describe. A feeling of bewildering _rightness_ , is the best way he can think of putting it. Like finding a missing puzzle piece a week after you’ve given up on tracking it down.

The door to the Two-Faced King’s house is now open, and framed by the doorway is a figure in a long, dark cloak. Except that cloak is pushed back now, and now everyone can see his face – slightly crooked grin, messy ginger hair, bright hazel eyes – and what he’s wearing – what appears to be light leather armor over a plain tunic. 

“...River guy?” Roman exclaims and hey, _yeah,_ it _is_ the guy from the start of all this! The one that had just known Patton’s name out of nowhere for no reason, which had been super weird, and then apparently, they’d all just got caught up with everything and forgot about that.

Thomas, next to Patton, goes rigid with startled realization, and then he says, “It’s _you!_ ”

The stranger from the river grins. “Good to see you again, Thomas,” he greets. “As well as the rest of you. Please, do come in! We have a lot to talk about, and not much time to spare, so we might as well do it in comfort.”

“Ah, yes, feel free to steal my home and appropriate it as you see fit,” says the Two-Faced King. He’s frowning, but if Patton tilts his head just right, he can see the smile on his other face.

“Well, you did offer,” shoots the stranger back – playful but with an undercurrent of distinct tension. He looks to the Sides and Thomas, all of whom haven’t moved to join him in the slightest. “Well? What on earth are you waiting for?”

“Well, a name might be a start,” Logan suggests.

“Yeah,” Virgil agrees. “Who the hell are you supposed to be?”

The stranger looks gently puzzled. “I rather thought Thomas would have told you by now,” he says, and then, scrutinizing Thomas’s pale, shocked face, “Or... perhaps not. Well, no matter. It only means he won’t have to hear it twice. My name is Tomas Linus Alexander.” His eyes glint in the dim early-morning light, and there’s an incredible familiarity to them, because they’re eyes that Patton knows exactly as well as he knows his own. “But all of my friends tend to call me Tam Lin. Now, won’t you please come inside? We really are running out of time.”


	9. patton (ii)

The inside of the Two-Faced King’s house isn’t very heavily furnished. It’s basically just one room, blocked off into small sections with curtains that fall from the roof to the floor. There’s a stripped-down bed and two nondescript chairs, a minimalistic kitchen space complete with a fireplace and several grimy plates, and a small pile of bags and crates piled up next to the front door. It looks a _lot_ like the owner of this house is all-too-prepared to leave at a moment’s notice.

Tomas Linus Alexander – the other Thomas? Tam Lin? What do they even call him, come to think of it? – doesn’t comment on this. He just lets everybody into the house, shuts the door behind them, and sits down cross-legged on the ground, by the wall.

Bee lets go of Thomas’s hand almost instantly, at this, and goes over to sit right next to Tomas. Apparently he has a preference.

Patton has another one of those (increasingly common) moments where he just exchanges completely bewildered glances with everyone else. Slowly, they all join this not-quite-a-stranger on the dusty wooden floor of the half-empty cabin – forming a rough circle, with Thomas opposite his unlikely counterpart. It feels almost like they’re about to start doing show-and-tell, or maybe some drama warmup games. Except it’s so ridiculously tense that they couldn’t possibly be gearing up to do either of these things. Maybe it’s more like storytime?

The Two-Faced King doesn’t join them. Instead, he places his basket on top of the stack of crates, and reaches in to pull out a small metal box. “I suppose this is where I ought to offer all of you tea,” he says dryly. He shakes it faintly, and it does that rustle-swish thing that loose tea leaves tend to do. “Any takers?”

“We’ll pass,” replies Logan quickly, before Patton can say anything.

“Suit yourselves.” He shrugs. With one face glancing towards Tomas (who nods and smiles, confirming) and the other looking out the window with pursed lips, the Two-Faced King lights the fire with a flick of his wrist.

Patton is very nearly completely distracted by this casual magical display, but then Tomas says, “Well, where to begin?” and his attention is successfully drawn back to the important thing going on.

“I was thinking we should probably start with the whole _how do you know Thomas_ bit, honestly,” says Virgil, who’s right at Thomas’s side, pressed up right next to him as if being as close to him as physically possible will prevent anything else terrible from happening. Patton’s next to Virgil, and Logan’s next to Patton – closest to Bee. There’s Janus and Roman and Remus on Thomas’s other side, in that order. “Also, how does Thomas know you? And why are you making me feel so –” His lips curve downwards, furiously. “– _not_ anxious? What’s up with that?”

Tomas hums lightly. “Well, I’m no expert, but I suspect any differences in your emotional state would be due to the fact that I currently have your friend’s heart.”

Silence.

“Okay,” says Roman. “Wonderful. Splendid. Absolutely _neat-o fantastic;_ would you care to explain _how_ and _why_ that is, exactly?”

“I, uh, think I can answer that one,” Thomas offers. His focus hasn’t shifted from Tomas’s face for one second since he’s appeared. It’s impossible to figure out what the expression on his face means. “Sort of. You know that night I... well, I went crazy in the kitchen?”

“Hard to forget,” Remus says. “I’ve never been prouder of you, honestly.”

“Yeah, well.” And now Thomas looks down, wrenching his gaze away. He avoids looking at any of them. “Before you guys popped up... Tomas did. He showed up at the front door at about midnight, and asked if he could talk with me. And none of you were around to tell me it was a bad idea, plus the fact that there was this weird sort of familiarity, with his face and everything, so... I let him in.”

“ _Oh_ boy,” groans Logan, pinching the bridge of his nose between two fingers.

“I ate the berries, remember?” Thomas is now properly addressing the Sides. “Which means that I kind of got... marked? I guess? That’s how he found me. He told me how there’s this, um, sacrifice thing. In this world.” He’s still avoiding eye-contact so fervently that it’s practically an Olympic sport at this point, and he’s aiming solidly for the gold medal with a decent chance of getting it. “Every seven years the fairies have to take a human life, or some really bad things will happen, and about how this time he had ended up being the one due to die, and he really didn’t want that to happen.”

“Fair enough,” agrees Roman. “Nobody likes a human sacrifice, and quite certainly, nobody likes _being_ a human sacrifice! But what does that have to do with you, or any of us?”

Tomas speaks up. “As I’m sure you’ve worked out by now, there is a direct connection between people from our world and people from yours. Sometimes the connections are obvious...” He gestures between Bee, who’s half-curled up at his side, then at Virgil, who seems to abruptly realize that he’s more-or-less mirroring this with Thomas, and scrambles back upwards into a more dignified position. “And sometimes they’re a bit looser.” He indicates the Two-Faced King, quietly brewing tea, and then Janus, expression tight and back rigidly straight.

“I’m still rather disappointed my counterpart is only a fraction of a whole,” murmurs the Two-Faced King, just loud enough for everyone to hear. “One would think I would have earned more than that, after all this time.”

Janus’s expression, if possible, goes even tighter.

“But sometimes,” continues Tomas, staring right at Thomas, “sometimes, the connection is so perfect that you have to wonder if divine intervention was involved.”

“He asked me if I’d be willing to swap hearts with him,” says Thomas.

“And he accepted,” Tomas adds with a pleasant little smile, hands clasped in front of him.

“You did _what?_ ” snarls Janus, seizing’s Thomas’s arm.

“It was only meant to be temporary!” Thomas exclaims, drawing back from Janus’s furious expression. “He said that as long as we could trick the Erlking into thinking that he wasn’t around anymore, I’d be able to go right back home afterwards!”

“Well, that obviously turned out _great_ for you,” Virgil exclaims, voice warping and crackling dangerously.

“It’s not as bad as it –” Thomas starts, but doesn’t get a chance to finish.

“No! Shut up! I shouldn’t even have to start explaining how much of a ridiculously stupid idea that was! _”_ Janus practically yells in Thomas’s face, shaking him violently by the shoulders. “ _You swapped places with a literal human sacrifice!_ ”

Over Remus’s delighted yelp of, “ _Hey, nice one!_ ”, Patton can’t help but think that if he had been in Thomas’s place at the time, he would’ve done the same thing. And then he realizes, with a shameful little start, that’s exactly the problem.

“I’m sorry, I _know_ , I’m _sorry,_ ” Thomas says, apparently unable to decide between pulling away from Janus and slumping forwards into his grip. “I don’t know, I just... I wasn’t – ”

“You weren’t thinking? _Yes!_ ” Logan snaps. “That much is blatantly obvious!”

Roman is frowning. “Look, obviously I don’t condone Thomas dying,” he says. “Because that’s ridiculously bad and living is _great_ , but also – is it really such a bad thing that he wanted to help save an innocent life?”

“Just because you have a _chronic need_ to be the glorious hero –” Janus snaps.

“Are we really so sure he’s _innocent?_ ” Logan asks sharply, at the same time.

“I trust him?” Thomas says, although he sounds unsure. Virgil lets out a laugh that’s more like a scoff, flinging his hands up in the air in complete exasperation, and Roman makes an indignant noise in the back of his throat.

“Time out time!” Patton exclaims, voice sliding upwards into a panicked chirp. He lets out a horribly awkward little chuckle. “How about we just all calm down? Talk this through with a _normal_ sort of argument! Instead of one where we’re all trying to strangle Thomas for making bad decisions.”

“Hang on, we’re strangling Thomas now?” Remus says, perking up.

“We are _not,_ I just think maybe Janus should let go of his shoulders a tiny bit, _maybe?_ ”

“That would be appreciated, yes,” Thomas gasps, because Janus’s angry hold on him has been tightening over the course of the last few minutes. Janus, to his credit, lets go instantly with a tiny, almost imperceptible downwards quirk to the side of his mouth. That’s the closest he’s going to get to apologizing. It’ll have to do.

“I love you,” he says instead, the words coming out fast and half-hissed and furious, “Thomas, I love you as much as I am physically able to, you know that, yes? I would do absolutely anything in my power to help you achieve what you want. You are the light of my life and my sole reason for existence. But you’re _also_ an absolute fucking _idiot_ and it’s a wonder you’ve survived this long. What is _wrong_ with you?”

“He’s too nice,” Virgil groans. “Thomas. Thomas, you’re _too nice._ You can’t just go handing your heart out to anyone who asks for it! What the fuck!”

“If it’s for a good cause –” Roman tries.

Remus starts saying something about cannibalism, and Logan starts monologuing furiously about survival statistics, and now Patton is trying to get their attention by waving his arms around because _he would like to contribute please._ Thomas is in the middle of it, looking small and tired and defeated. It’s pretty much complete chaos; the sort of chaos that has no chance of ending anytime soon.

“Tea,” says a doubled-over voice loudly, and the Two-Faced King slams a weathered old mug down on the floorboards in front of Tomas, effectively cutting off the argument. He has a mug of his own clutched in a hand, and also passes one off to Bee.

There is a brief interlude where everyone’s either glaring at Tomas, glaring at _Thomas,_ sipping at their mugs of tea, or glancing around at everyone in confusion. That last bit’s just Patton, though.

“Thomas has told us what happened to him,” Logan says eventually. “It’s as piecemeal and haphazard of an explanation as we could ever hope to get, but it makes some amount of sense. The real question is – what do _you_ have to say for yourself?”

“There’s not much _to_ say,” Tomas replies. “He’s covered all the information rather neatly. You and your..." Tomas trails off briefly for a second, looking thoughtful. "I'm sorry, what is Thomas to you, exactly? Your host?"

" _Host?_ " Janus says incredulously, momentarily distracted from being angry at Thomas. “What is this; the world’s most confusing dinner party?”

"I've always thought 'centre' had a nice ring to it," Roman adds. "It never really caught on, though."

This is a strange way to get sidetracked, but Patton has an opinion too. "Well, I just call him my sun!"

"Pat, we've been over this; I'm not your -" Thomas begins, looking more than a bit exhausted, and probably not just because of the whole argument thing.

"Not like that," Patton interrupts. "Sun, like – s-u-n. Because, you know... we all kinda revolve around you! Like planets. If I were a planet, I'd be Pluto," he adds, even though it doesn't sound like anyone's paying much attention. "I always thought having a planet named after a dog was super nice."

"We've never consulted each other about this?" Logan, for his part, looks faintly bemused. "That seems like an obvious oversight. We should probably decide that at some point. For the record, 'source' is my own term of choice."

“Core,” contributes Virgil, with two fingers raised. “Y’know. If anyone even cares.”

Remus just shrugs. "I mean, he's Thomas. Do we really need a name for what he is?"

“I see,” says Tomas. “Well, then. To borrow a phrase, you and your _source_ have an uncanny connection with me and the people I surround myself with. It’s inexplicable, but majorly convenient. And I’ll make this promise to you right now – by the end of today, you’ll be able to return home and continue on with your lives – life? – as if none of this ever happened.”

Patton checks, but Tomas Alexanders doesn’t have his fingers crossed behind his back. His toes appear to be un-crossed and genuine as well. A promise’s a promise! He’ll be holding him to that.

“Why not right now?” Thomas asks.

“We need to wait for the Erlking,” says the Two-Faced King.

“To give up,” Tomas is quick to add. “He’ll be looking for me and you both. This house is the safest place for us at the moment, but...” A moment of hesitation. “We will have to move soon.”

“We should have time to finish our tea,” the Two-Faced King points out pleasantly, taking a sip of his own.

Tomas nods, and raises his own mug. “True, very true. A few minutes, at least. So if you have any more questions, now _is_ the time to ask.”.

Silence.

“Uh, well. What’s up with Bee?” Virgil asks, pointing at his counterpart. He sounds reluctantly curious. “He’s the only one of – you know, _us_ , that we’ve met who doesn’t speak English.”

“He’s on exchange,” replies the Two-Faced King with one wry half-smile and one look of fond solemnness, overlaid delicately on top of each other. “From the southlands, I’m led to believe. It’s all very political.”

“It always is, around here,” says Tomas with something that’s almost an eye roll.

Bee pipes up, saying something that sounds gleeful and joking, and all three of them chuckle heartily.

“Fairies have student exchange?” Logan mutters, apparently baffled.

Questions. Questions, questions, questions. Patton would’ve expected Logan to have a whole lot, but he’s just sitting there, cross-legged and staring right at Thomas with that puzzled little grimace hovering over his lips. His _‘I’m trying to untangle the universe’s mysteries singlehandedly’_ look. Oh! That gives Patton a question idea.

“How did you even manage to get into our...” He waves his hand around. “Our world? Our universe? The place where we live – you know.”

“Well,” says the Two-Faced King. “All forests are connected, eventually.”

“...Okay, what does that mean?” Virgil asks with a frown.

“It means that you could walk into any forest in existence and end up in the Kadath Woods,” Tomas explains, raising his mug to his lips. “So long as you had the right invitation, or were looking in the right place. I’m sure you’ve noticed by now the, ah, variance of the wildlife?”

“The trees, they’re all different types all throughout the forest,” Thomas says, with a nod.

“So you went out wandering into every forest in existence, looking for an unwitting heart donor, somehow managed to find the _most perfect candidate_ _imaginable,_ ” concludes Janus. “And decided to take advantage of his... truly _disturbing_ amounts of goodwill and kindness in order to manipulate him into helping you trick the fairy king.”

“That seems a little unfair,” Patton starts.

But Tomas is nodding. “That is more or less the gist of it, yes. Your involvement was a huge, happy coincidence. And I won’t say I’m proud of my actions, but I _will_ point out that he was the one who made the monumentally foolish mistake of eating the King’s berries in the first place.”

“And there it is,” Virgil mutters, scowling.

“If it hadn’t been me, I’m sure it would’ve been someone else,” Tomas says. “All things considered, you’re rather fortunate _._ ”

“Tam Lin,” says the Two-Faced King quietly, tapping at the floorboards of the house. It sounds like a gentle warning.

Tomas looks up, and around at nothing in particular, and nods again. “Before anything else happens,” he says, “and before I forget. Thomas. Did you bring the pharmakon along with you?”

Thomas is looking back and forth between his counterpart and the rest of them. “That... liquid thing that you had me make?”

“The very same.” For the first time, the cracks in Tomas’s calm, polite mask break a little. He actually looks worried. “I do hope you have it, or... things could get rather unpleasant.”

“ _Ooh gosh._ ” Thomas’s face flashes complete panic. His hand goes reflexively to his hair and runs through it once, twice. “I... don’t. I don’t; I’m _so_ sorry. There was a lot going on, and I guess I just... left without it.”

The mask breaks entirely. Tomas looks _panicked._

“Janus has it, though!” Patton says suddenly, remembering. He points at Janus’s bag. “You took a sample, remember? Just in case we needed it for – for the hospital, or something!”

Janus is grimacing in that particular way he does whenever Patton says something that probably should have remained unsaid. Patton can’t see why, though. Tomas had seemed really worried about this elixir thing, and now that he knows they’ve got it, he looks super relieved! Happy endings all around.

“If I may?” Tomas is saying, extending a hand towards Janus.

Janus doesn’t look happy about it in the least, but he does tug the shiny thermos full of Thomas’s evil-smelling gunk (or wait, maybe it’s morally-grey gunk? Maybe they shouldn’t be assigning morality to potions they make in their kitchen at midnight, that might be a mean thing to do. Potions probably aren’t innately bad) and hand it off to Tomas.

Tomas takes it, examines the probably-unfamiliar metal container with mild curiosity for a moment, and then tucks it away into a pouch at his waist. “Thank you, Janus.”

“What is it for?” Thomas says. “You gave me the ingredients list, and you told me how to put it together, but I don’t remember you actually telling me anything about...” He trails off, puzzlement all over his face. Puzzlement that’s slowly giving way to a dawning sort of angry suspicion.

“The time?” Tomas asks instead of answering, looking up at the Two-Faced King.

“Nearly dawn,” he replies, with half-a-face’s glance to the nearest window.

“Then it’s about time Thomas got going,” he says, and stands up, walking to the door.

After a second or two, everyone else does as well – including Patton.

“Does this mean you’re going to give Thomas his heart back?” he asks. “Because, y’know, I think we’d all appreciate it if that happened. We’ve been wandering around here trying to get it back for _days_ now.”

Tomas’s lips twist up in the faintest of smiles. There’s something strange to it that Patton really doesn’t like. A sort of sad coldness that makes it hard to see Thomas in his face and features. “After a fashion, yes.”

“Whatever you’re doing, I don’t think I want to be part of it anymore,” Thomas decides, with a glance to Janus and then over at Logan. His expression hardens into resolve, and then his gaze returns to his mirrored-universe counterpart. “Seriously, I mean it. All I want now is... my heart back in place, my Sides all where they should be, and to be back home. You can deal with the Erlking and his whole weird human sacrifice plan yourself.”

Tomas raises his hand in a placating gesture, ducking his head with a sort of half-smile. “Not to worry; I already have.”

And Patton realizes with a start that he does _not_ trust Tomas Linus Alexander, not as far as he can throw him. And he’s pretty sure that if _he_ doesn’t, none of the others do too.

There’s a moment where nobody even so much as breathes, and then all of them – Roman, Virgil, Patton, Logan, Janus, even Remus – move as one, stepping back to surround Thomas. But it’s far too late for that, because even as they do there’s the thunder of hoofbeats outside, pounding at the ground with furious vengeance, and the accompanying sound of string music and drumbeats, and it gets louder and louder and comes to a halt right outside of the Two-Faced King’s cabin.

Bee clings to Tomas’s arm, and mutters something in distinct confusion. Both Tomas and the Two-Faced King seem entirely unsurprised by this turn of events.

There is a terrible fear overtaking Patton now. A dreadful unhappy fear that’s creeping through every part of his body as he realizes that everything’s about to go so horribly wrong in every way imaginable and there’s absolutely nothing he can do to stop it.

“Thomas Foley Sanders, _come out of the house,_ ” comes the Erlking’s voice from outside, ringing sharp and harsh and loud in the sudden silence.

Thomas trembles. They can all feel it – the full-body shudder of resistance that passes all the way through him. And they all know what it means.

“Don’t do this to us again _,_ ” Virgil begs, seizing Thomas’s arm as if it’s going to do any good whatsoever.

Tears are running down Thomas’s cheeks, although his face seems frozen in an expression of shock and terror and something that’s almost grief. “I’m sorry,” he forces out, thick and choked, and then he’s gone – the door is open, and Thomas is half-being dragged and half-walking with a dreadful jerky abruptness to every bend of his limbs, and Tomas is walking out behind him.

The door slams shut behind them both, before any of them can do so much as move to stop anything from happening. Patton’s head is full of static and warning bells, and in some distant part of himself he thinks that this must be what it feels like to be Virgil all of the time.

And Remus _screams._

“ _No!_ ” roars Janus in the same moment, furious, and falls forwards to pound desperately on the door, rattling it in its frame. It doesn’t budge, and he slams on it harder, and as he does more arms come out, emerging from underneath his turtleneck until he’s just about clawing at it with dozens and dozens of impossible fingers.

Patton rushes to the window, tearing back the flimsy curtain, and tries to elbow it to pieces. It doesn’t give. Whatever he’s pushing at doesn’t feel like glass, and is a million times stronger. Virgil is almost immediately there too, doing the same, and is having just as much success.

He sees, through the window, Thomas coming to a jerky, uncoordinated halt on the porch of the house. And he just strands there – eyes wide, unable to move his head, still weeping slowly. His eyes strain backwards in their direction, and Patton feels tears springing up and a desperate sob emerging from his throat.

At the treeline, the Erlking is there. He’s resplendent and regal on the back of a midnight-black steed that has too many teeth in all the wrong places. His autumn cloak is high over one shoulder, fluttering behind him in the light breeze that seems to have sprung up out of nowhere, and he’s surrounded on all sides by hundreds of other riders of all forms and shapes and sizes. Not all of them are on horseback, or at least if they are, the things that they’re riding can only be described as horses in an extremely loose sense.

Patton sees Tomas stride past an unmoving Thomas and down the simple cobbled pathway, and go right up to the Erlking. A few words are exchanged between them, and then –

– and then the Erlking leans down off his horse, and kisses Tomas. Right on the lips. There is _undeniable_ affection there – and not just casual ‘fairies playing with humans’ sort of affection. It’s... judging by the way that Tomas is kissing back, it’s entirely reciprocated? _What?_ What’s going on? What is any of this? Hadn’t he said that the Erlking was trying to kill him?

Logan is crammed up right next to him with his face practically pressed to the window’s surface. He makes a choked noise, and then a, “ _Oh._ ”

“What are you doing?” Roman demands, whirling to face the Two-Faced King. “You can’t keep us in here while your faithless monster of a friend goes and _murders us –_ murders _Thomas_ – in cold blood!”

“Stopping the sacrifice from occurring would be a distinctly dreadful idea,” replies the Two-Faced King, perched on top of his luggage. He takes a delicate, measured sip of tea. Both of his faces look sad but serene. “Really, it’s for the best that you can’t do anything.”

Remus roars and rushes him. He collides roughly into the Two-Faced King, whose tea goes splashing against the wall and crown goes clattering to the ground, and pins him roughly against the small pile of luggage. One hand to the throat, pushing down fiercely. _Too_ fiercely. The King begins to choke and gag through two sets of windpipes, scrabbling for purchase. Remus keeps holding down. He doesn’t seem concerned about getting answers or getting out of the house or anything along the lines. All he seems to care about is making the Two-Faced King _hurt._

Patton would be more concerned about this (maybe. Probably. Hopefully.) if his gaze hadn’t suddenly been drawn back outside, to where Tomas is currently helping Thomas up onto the back of the Erlking’s horse and guiding him to hold onto the back of that flaming autumn cloak. His fingers grasp onto it mechanically, even as Patton’s own fingers claw at the window, not finding any purchase.

Janus’s extra arms slide back under his turtleneck with one sharp noodles-being-slurped retraction and now he’s just got two and he stalks over to Remus and the Two-Faced King, and snaps, “ _Stop._ ”

Remus does not let go of the King. But he does stop pushing down on his throat quite so hard.

“Let us out,” says Janus.

“Not yet,” the Two-Faced King replies.

Patton is suddenly, horribly aware that this might be the last time he sees Thomas, _ever_. His eyes are watering because he doesn’t want to close them for a moment just in case he misses any of these last precious few seconds, and he can’t stop thinking about how much he doesn’t want to think about what's going to happen _next._ Will they shatter into nothingness like a window broken painfully beyond repair? Will they just _vanish?_ Or are they going to have to keep on existing without him? It’s completely unthinkable. A world without Thomas is no world at all.

“Let us _out,_ ” Patton manages to croak.

“Not yet,” the Two-Faced King repeats.

Outside, Tomas swings himself easily up onto a horse that another fae leads to him, and all of a sudden the entire congregation of fae riders is alive in perfectly deadly motion. They wheel around in synchronized harmony, an unending swirl of merry-go-round horses, and begin galloping away – down the riverside, heading upstream. The Erlking and Thomas are at the head of it all. Soon Patton can’t see him in all the mess of bodies and colors and movement. Virgil makes the most heartbreaking noise, and Logan slams his head into the wall once, twice, three times, and then he doesn’t move a muscle.

“Let us out!” Virgil screams, hammering hopelessly at the window.

“You don’t want to do this,” the Two-Faced King tells them, face blurring back and forth so quickly it’s hard to make out the details of either one of them. “Things will end far easier for all of us if you just let events occur as they are meant to.”

Logan takes a deep, sharp breath in, and then snaps, “Well, _fuck that._ We want Thomas back.”

The Two-Faced King looks immensely pained. And not just because he’s currently being pinned by the throat.

“Release me,” he says. “You’ve asked me thrice, so... I’ll do what I can.”

Remus does. The king goes sprawling to the ground, coughing.

“Are they still there?” he asks, double-voice rasping painfully as he rubs at his throat. “The rest of the Court – have they left yet?”

There are still riders outside, although their numbers are quickly diminishing as they ride away, but the leaders of the procession are nowhere to be seen. “No, there’s still some, but they’re leaving pretty quickly. Why-?”

“Then we’ll have to be very fast indeed,” says the Two-Faced King, and staggers to his feet, flinging a hand out. The door slams open. And without pausing to think, Patton is racing out the door, everyone else only a few steps behind him.

The early-morning air is cold. It looks like it’s nearly dawn. The few remaining riders are almost gone, following the tail end of the long, quick-moving procession.

The Two-Faced King snaps one hand sharply up into the air in a firm, decisive motion, and the ground ripples outwards from him in a burst of force. The remaining horses and horse-like creatures still in the vicinity rear up, startled, and while their riders are trying to calm them, he stabs his other hand out with matter-of-fact precision, and they all go tumbling away, knocked off by an invisible wave of incredible force. There are now four snorting, stomping beasts standing before them, waiting for new riders to guide them.

The Two-Faced King springs up, kicking his leg over the side of one of them. “ _Hurry up!_ ”

Roman is already scrambling up onto the nearest and sturdiest of the horse-things, and extends a hand to Remus, who ignores it, instead choosing to haul himself up behind in one great heave of exertion. Logan and Virgil are doing the same, which leaves Janus and Patton to grunt and struggle their way onto the back of the last of them. Janus in front, Patton behind.

Bee, who Patton realizes now had been left behind by Tomas in all of the confusion, yells out at them in wild-eyed panic, waving frantically. The message is clear – he doesn’t want to be left behind.

Patton grabs Janus by the shoulders, and says, “Bee – he’s – do something –”

Janus growls in frustration but almost immediately reaches out and down with two right arms that hadn’t been there a split second ago, and grabs hold of Bee, tugging him up to the back of the horse-creature. He immediately clings to Patton’s back like a limpet.

“Go! Follow them to the river’s end!” snaps the Two-Faced King, and snaps his hands like he’s holding a pair of reins, and he’s thundering off along the riverbank, kicking up dirt and leaves and dust in his wake.

“Hold tight, both of you,” advises Janus, sounding astoundingly calm for someone who’s about to ride a monster horse thing for the first time ever, bareback. He digs his heels into the beast’s sides, letting out a sharp, “ _ha!_ ”, and they’re off.

Patton wraps his arms around Janus, leaning into him as the wind whips at his hair and threatens to knock his glasses askew. Bee is a surprisingly light weight against his back, but he can feel his little puffing breaths right in his ear.

The forest blurs into green and brown and the river roars just as loudly as the wind. The others are right beside them, keeping equal pace, and the Two-Faced King is right behind. And then they’re there and they’ve arrived, and the river spills over the edge of a rocky, jagged line across the sky. Beyond, it’s just soft yellow grey sky and mist as far as the eye can see. And around the river...

The Fisher-King’s boat is docked at one bank, close to them, and he sits there staring out at the horizon with a grim, unhappy expression. The legions of the fairy court are gathered on both sides of the river in endless crowd, and there is the Erlking on horseback with Tomas Linus Alexander standing beside him, straight-backed and proud, and there are the Octavians, one on either side of the bank, and most importantly of all, _there is Thomas._

He’s silhouetted against the dim mist, standing in the middle of the river. He’s waist-deep in the current, visibly trembling. Patton’s heart breaks and breaks and breaks again.

Their horse whines and whinny and comes to a halt just as they reach the edge of the crowd, and then it stops and refuses to go any further no matter how many times Janus kicks and prods and curses at it. The other horses are the same. They’re stuck at the very outskirts of the proceedings, and the crowd is so thick and packed-together that going on foot just isn’t an option.

“We’ve got to do something,” Roman hisses.

There is a sound like the largest bass drum in the world being struck with one firm, confident motion, and the river stops running. The water just freezes in place – not like _ice-_ freeze, but like it’s a still, unmoving lake. And then the drumbeat rings out again, and again, and it continues pounding out a steady, even rhythm.

There is a _hum_ from one side of the riverbank. Loud, unnaturally melodic, vibrating through Patton’s entire body. It rises and falls, and almost instantly a responding hum from the opposite bank rises to meet it. And then there is another, overlapping, and then the Erlking sings out a single note, high and achingly beautiful, and the fae onlookers at the very edge of the water begin to dance.

And Patton recognizes it, because it’s hard not to. It’s the same sort of way that they’d been dancing at the Erlking’s midnight party. Arms and fingers twisting and twining together and apart smoothly, every one of them moving in deliberate, sweeping patterns. Logan had been fascinated with this dance. A bad sort of fascinated, though. A _can’t look away no matter how hard you try_ fascinated. Patton can see why, and it scares him. It scares him _so_ much.

He wants to move. Wants to jump off the horse, run to Thomas, drag him out of the river and take him _home_. He can’t move and he can’t do any of those things, and whether it’s fairy magic or just plain fear keeping him rooted in place, it’s hard to tell. And the others seem to be just as frozen as he is.

“You don’t want to interfere.” The Two-Faced King draws closer to them. One of his faces is wreathed in sorrow, the other in shadow. “I’m sorry, I really am, but you _can’t_ interfere. This is far beyond you right now.”

“Then _why?_ ” Virgil demands. His body is shaking. He’s hunched over the neck of the horse, breath coming ragged. “Why bring us here? Why steal us horses? Why – why tell us to _hurry up_ if we can’t do fucking anything about it?”

The Two-Faced King blinks. Slow and smooth. “You asked me three times. I can’t refuse a direct request like that. And besides.” His gaze returns to the water. “You’re all very attached to him. It seemed only right that you be here to see this.”

The sunlight breaks, spilling across the horizon in glorious radiance, turning the water to liquid gold. The singing is reaching a fevered crescendo, the dancing so fast it’s impossible to make out any of the individuals taking part. And all they can do is watch.

“Hm,” says Remus suddenly, and then, “You know what? _No._ ”

A quick, smooth jump off the flank of the horse, and he’s on the ground, and Roman goes, “What are you-?” but Remus ignores him. Ignores all of them; ignores the Two-Faced King’s grim shake of the head and double-glare – and simply hitches his long green skirt up in one hand, above his knee, before splashing abruptly off into the shallows of the river.

And then he’s dashing along the riverbank in a frenetic rage, past the legions of rhythmically-moving, solemnly-singing beings. Past Octavian of Kadath, who tries to grab at his arm and pull him back; past the Fisher-King, whose ancient eyes go wide and started and fearful. Past the Erlking, whose voice cracks and fractures in the middle of a particularly high and sustained note, and cries, “ _No!_ ” with such overwhelming panic that Patton feels the earth shake.

Tomas, beside him, yells, “Remus, _please,_ you don’t know what you’re doing – everything will be all right, I promise you, but you _can’t_ stop this!”

Remus doesn’t care. Remus has never cared about people telling him things like _stop_ and _don’t do that,_ and that has never been more obvious as he neatly and furiously flips Tomas Linus Alexander off and dives right into the river.

Thomas’s face is pale and his hair is plastered down with sweat and river water, and his eyes are huge as he turns slowly and painfully to see what’s going on. When he sees Remus barrelling towards him as fast as he can in the slow-moving, waist-deep river water, relief breaks across his face. He even begins to smile. Remus reaches him, lets out a short bark of manic laughter, and grabs him around the waist, apparently intending to haul him bodily back to shore and out of there.

“ ** _Let go of him,_** ” the Erlking howls, and brings both hands down with enough force to make the air _crack_ like a whip’s struck it. The moment he does, the singing stops. The dancing stops. _Everything_ stops.

And Thomas’s body shatters in Remus’s arms.

Patton screams, and he feels Bee’s arms tighten around him as he, in turn, clings to Janus like a lifeline. He’d been there one minute and gone the next! And Thomas is just _gone._ Is he dead? Are they dead? Have they stopped existing? What’s going to _happen_ to them-?

His eyes are blurring over with tears, so it takes him a moment to process what’s happening in the middle of the river. Thomas is not in Remus’s arms anymore. There is, however, a fluttering, flapping bird trapped in his embrace, raking its claws against his chest and straining to get away. Its feathers are sleek and dark, its cries are loud and piercing in the sudden silence.

Remus squeezes the bird tightly, practically crushing it against his ribcage. “Oh, you’re going to have to try harder than _that_ to get rid of me.”

He hears Roman’s sudden intake of breath and awed whisper of, “No. _Really?_ ” but doesn’t understand what it means.

The Erlking’s hands come down again, and there’s that almighty crack once more. The bird is gone, and now there’s a snake, and Remus is frantically wrestling with it as it winds its way around his arms and chest and neck, hissing and rattling. He seizes it close to its head, pulling it away from sinking its fangs into his neck but never once letting go.

“ _Damn_ , Thomas!” he cries, as gleeful as only Remus can be with a poisonous animal only inches away from ending his existence. “You’ve been holding out on me with those fangs of yours! Show me some _teeth,_ honey!”

Patton’s hands leap up to his mouth, eyes wide.

Another crack. The snake doesn’t disappear, but now it starts to grow. It had been the size of a common garden snake, but now it’s bigger than any of the horses standing to attention on the riverbanks, and now it’s even bigger than that.

Remus lets out a hoot of anticipation, and wraps his entire body around it as it continues to lengthen and swell. It grows teeth and its scales harden and start to shine with metallic malevolence and its eyes are big enough now that everyone watching can see their color – flat unseeing white, all the way through. Remus is practically _nothing_ compared to it, but still he continues to hold on.

It twists and thrashes wildly in the water, furious and trying to throw him off. It’s like one of those bull-riding games, but so much bigger and with far sharper teeth. Its unwelcome passenger is not deterred by anything it can throw at him, no matter how violently it shakes or how quickly it flings itself from side to side.

Abruptly, it seems to give up entirely on that avenue of attack. Instead, it dives head-first into the water, disappearing into the opaque golden depths with Remus still in tow.

The water is still and glassy for a long, long moment.

Then the serpent erupts out of the current with such sudden intensity that it’s practically airborne for a moment or two. And Remus is still clinging to its back, hand clasped tightly around its scaled midriff. He is soaked from head to toe and he’s laughing madly. A wild, breathless cackle; radiantly delighted. The serpent crashes back into the river, sending huge waves against its banks, and Remus is still laughing fit to burst. He presses his face to the scales of the roaring, writhing creature in his arms, and plants a firm kiss on its back, and just for a moment it seems as if it might stop fighting.

The Erlking’s hand comes down again. _Crack._

Remus is no longer riding a serpent. He’s got a death grip on the mane of a massive lion; too massive to be natural. It rears back up onto its hind legs, roar echoing across the water, and snaps furiously at him. Its mane is bedraggled and soaked in the current. Its eyes are wide and frightened.

“ _Boring!_ ” Remus screeches at the Erlking. “Bring back the massive fucking snake!”

Patton feels joy, raw and unbridled, bubbling up inside him. “Oh my _gosh,_ he’s actually doing it!” He squeezes Janus around the shoulders because he _has_ to do something with all of this energy, and Janus holds onto his arms and squeezes back, expression wild and gloriously hopeful as they all watch Remus locked in a deadly, furious struggle with this monster-lion.

“Let go of him!” the Erlking yells back. There is something close to hysteria coloring his voice now. “You _must_ let go!”

“Don’t even fucking think about it!” Virgil yells, pale but eyes bright with determination.

Remus loosens one arm to shoot Virgil an irreverent, sloppy salute. “Wasn’t thinking about it, Welcome to the Black Eye-Shade!” he cries back, and thankfully immediately resumes his tight two-arm hold as the lion gives a particularly furious shake.

“ _Let – him – go-!_ ”

_Crack._

The lion is now a pillar of flames, shooting up into the sky and scalding Remus’s skin. The river begins to boil; bubbles rolling up to the surface all around them, steam evaporating up into the sky.

“This is more like it,” Remus yells as the flesh of his face begins to blacken and warp, and he lets out another one of those deranged, delighted cackles. “ _Burn, baby, burn!_ Bring that heat, scorch me into cinders! _Harder,_ daddy!”

_Crack._ A huge black bear; fur bristling, roaring loud enough to shake the nearby trees. Remus just yells something about twunks and overcompensation. _Crack._ A stag, horns a tangled razor-sharp mess. Remus seizes them with both hands and pulls back like he’s pulling at a set of reins, giggling madly. _Crack. Crack. Crack._ Creatures that Patton can’t even conceive names for; blurring past, one after the other. Remus doesn’t so much as flinch, no matter how much Thomas’s form shifts and warps or how monstrous he becomes or how many spikes and claws and teeth he grows. He just keeps holding on fiercely.

Then it all stops.

Remus and a now completely human Thomas are now standing in the middle of the river, locked in a furious mutual embrace. Both are panting heavily. Remus is beaming proudly and Thomas appears to be either breathlessly sobbing or breathlessly laughing, or some strange mixture of the two. They’re soaking wet and they won’t let go of each other, and they’re both perfectly fine, without a scratch on either of them. It’s _over._

Patton lets out a loud whoop of triumph, and it’s echoed heartily by the others. Virgil punches the air enthusiastically. Logan’s sigh of relief alone would probably be enough to knock a grown man over. Roman leaps off the side of his horse, already ankle-deep in the water and fully prepared to go out to help Remus haul Thomas back in.

But he stops dead. Because he, like the rest of them, can tell that something’s wrong. Because apart from the wind in the trees and Remus and Thomas both breathing in ragged asynchronicity, there’s no sound. Nobody’s talking. Nobody’s moving. And now Bee’s fingers are digging into Patton’s arms like claws, and it’s starting to get really painful.

“Is everything all right?” whispers Patton. Speaking at a normal volume sounds wrong. Logan offers up a single, puzzled shrug. Roman dithers in the shallows. Bee mutters something disjointed and frightened.

A faint gasp arises from the crowd. Patton follows the general direction of attention, and sees what they’re all gasping about.

The Erlking is shaking. Head bent down over the neck of his horse, hands gripping the reins tightly, shuddering spasmodically. Tomas, beside him, reaches up with a look of fearful concern, but retracts his hands at the last second, like he’s afraid that he’ll be shocked. His hand goes to his sword, sheathed at his waist.

“No,” mutters the Two-Faced King. He looks pale and ashen, two faces superimposed in something quickly approaching mindless terror. His hands curl into fists. “No, no, no, no, _no_ – ”

The onlookers seem to be all equally distressed, Patton notices, as his gaze darts wildly across the scene. They’re clutching at each other’s arms and muttering among each other and looking at the Erlking, who’s now trembling so violently that his midnight-black steed is starting to nicker and whinny in alarm. Even Octavian – both of them, but notably the red-cloaked, guitar-carrying one – has complete dread in his eyes and across his face. Bee is _quaking_ against Patton’s back.

It’s clear that they’re all very, very afraid of _something,_ but Patton can’t for the life of him work out _what_. And neither, it seems, do any of the others.

And then a lot of things start to happen at once, _very_ quickly.

All around them, the forest comes to life with _noise._ Thousands upon thousands of birds rise up from the trees in a dark wave of fluttering, flapping unison. Every species imaginable, all mixed together in a single panicked flock. They’re all yelling and screeching and calling out, and they’re all flying away from the forest as fast as they can. And it’s not just the birds, from the sound of it. The distant roars and hoots and hollers of an entire forest’s worth of wildlife can be heard as every single one of them flees in pure animal terror.

Quite a lot of the fae court’s horses and horse-like creatures seem to be doing the same. All around, the court’s beasts are bolting away from the river and into the trees. Some riders are flung off and to the ground. Some riders jump off willingly, before they can be thrown. Still others hold on tight to their steeds and urge them to leave as fast as possible.

Most of them are running. Into the forest, down the river. Away. The ones that _aren’t..._ they just look numb and resigned. They’re sinking to their knees, falling to the ground, despair all over their faces.

Octavian – Octavian the fairy-changeling, with the guitar and the red cape and _oh does it even matter at this point_ – is yelling something to the Fisher-King and then gesturing across to his human counterpart. They are both shaking their heads, and Octavian-the-human is gesturing violently downstream, yelling back. None of their conversation can be heard over the cacophony of the forest.

And now the Erlking is no longer just _shaking._ He’s outright convulsing, head jerking back and forth with his eyes blank and shining in the sudden darkness. His mouth is moving at rapid-speed, although he seems to be utterly unaware of whatever it is that he’s saying.

Patton trips off the side of the horse, Bee still clinging to his back, and stumbles over to meet the others. He grabs at Logan, and Logan grabs back, and grasps out for Virgil with his other hand. “What’s happening?

“I don’t know!” Logan says. Janus joins them. Remus and Thomas are already splashing their way back to shore, and Roman is reaching out to them, but before they can even get within arm’s reach, there is a – there’s a – something – Patton doesn’t know how to describe it. There’s a big _something._ It’s like everything is _grey_ and then everything is _not_ and then it’s grey again. The world is pulsing in dizzying, colorless flashes that blur Patton’s vision and make him feel sick.

He squints, trying to see what’s going on. Thomas has fallen back into the water, disoriented, and Remus is trying to pull him back to his feet. The humming has started again, except this time it’s discordant and jarring and it’s _everywhere,_ and also none of the fairies are actually the source of it.

The Erlking’s voice rises above all of it, and the words he’s saying aren’t in English or any other language that Patton’s ever heard. They’re guttural, throaty vowels and syllables being spat out angrily through a set of vocal cords that were never meant to handle them. His eyes are wide and inhumanly bright and his mouth moves jerkily. His fists are clenched. Everybody has fled from him. The only living being anywhere near him is Tomas, who appears to be pleading desperately with him to stop.

The words send dreadful shivers up and down Patton’s spine. Furious, prickling shivers. He feels all hot-and-cold and angry and terrified all at once and he’s not entirely sure how much of that anger and terror is actually _his._

“Guys,” croaks Virgil, reaching out blindly to the rest of them with one hand as another one of those dizzying flashes of black-and-white overtakes everything again. It lasts for longer this time, and when the colors of the world as they know it return, there’s something sickly and off-putting to all of it. “I think we messed up. I think we messed up _really_ bad.”

Patton can only nod, tears dripping down his cheeks. He tries to respond; to say something – _anything –_ but his breath stutters in his chest. He can’t. He sees –

Remus and Thomas; caught and struggling to get out of the river that is no longer a river anymore; because whatever’s running through it isn’t anything close to water. Water isn’t that thick and viscous, and it definitely isn’t supposed to move like _that,_ move like it’s alive and it’s trying to tug the two of them back into its depth with eyes and claws and teeth that disappear like muffled laughter if you focus on them for too long. This is wrong.

Roman, at the edge, reaching out but unable to move past what’s left of the riverbank. His head is swinging back and forth as he sees thin, blinding cracks being ripped into existence everywhere around them, like someone’s taken a knife to reality a million times over, from the other side of it all. Except there are _things_ behind the cracks, and whatever they are they’re pulling them open bigger and bigger and it’s not going to be all that long before the cracks are big enough that they can _get through._ This is wrong.

Virgil, the shadows under his eyes creeping downwards like gravity’s tugging at them. Getting darker and darker as his face becomes paler and paler, as as around them the earth begins to crack and crumble and decay. His gaze is fixed firmly on Thomas with something like a desperate, animal need; but he’s not moving to get him although his entire body is shaking with unresolved exertion. This is wrong.

Logan, glasses reflecting the impossible angles of the shadows of the _things_ that can be seen through the cracks. Face a mask of complete incomprehension. Logan should never look that confused at _anything._ This is wrong.

And Janus, standing so still and so solemn it’s almost as though he’s not aware of any of this happening at all. It’s impossible to tell what he’s thinking. A flash of monochrome illuminates his face, all their faces, makes it go all sheet-white and shadow-dark in equal measure, and Patton sees that he’s not looking at Thomas, not looking up to the sky, not looking to the Erlking. He’s looking _down._

_This is wrong._

Abruptly, Patton realizes that at some point, whatever the Erlking has been ranting and raving about has slowly, imperceptibly shifted into English. Now it can actually be understood. It’s funny how much that doesn’t make him feel better.

“ _From the endless wells of night and through the aching cracks retraced  
Her formless, formful body rends and rips apart both time and space  
For she who has one thousand faces; she who hails from void-drenched graces  
She whose frenzied song will drive the sanest minds to maddened places  
Fractures through the flimsy veil; her jaw agape, her eyes aglow  
She’s creeping mist, she’s blackened wind, a symphony of no tomorrow  
Warps our vision, brings her havoc, hair and minds alight with static  
In this scene her guise is seen at last - the world sparks achromatic – “_

He’s spitting it out with the same angry, possessed jerkiness as he’d been chanting those inhuman words before. It’s at this point that his horse decides it’s had far too much of this by far and it _bolts_. The fairy king falls to the ground, crumpled in a grey-and-white little heap. His eyes are radiant. Luminous liquid is leaking from them and from the bottom of his mouth, still open and chanting. He’s shaking so hard and so fast that it looks like he’s going to vibrate right out of his body.

Tomas is kneeling near him. He’s sobbing. He’s praying.

Maybe Patton should start praying, too.

_“HEAR OUR TERROR, FILL OUR SILENCE,  
SHATTER PEACE AND SOUND THE VIOLENCE  
RHYME AND REASON QUICKLY WANE  
AND ONLY MINUTES STILL REMAIN  
DEVOUR OUR WORLD, WRITHE EVER HIGHER  
FEAST ON WHAT YOU MOST DESIRE –”_

The Erlking’s voice raises in glorious, exultant crescendo.

_“NYARLATHOTEP, CRAWLING CHAOS,  
DRINK US DOWN - **LET SENSE BETRAY US**!_”

Patton can hear people screaming. It’s taken him entirely too long to realize that he’s one of them.

The cracks burst, rupturing outwards in a million-million-million fracturing-scattering-shattering fractals, and Patton realizes the awful truth. There aren’t a million things hiding behind the cracks. There’s only _one_. And it’s all around them and beneath them and above them, and it doesn’t know anything about what they think or do or feel, because they’re far, _far_ too small for it to even care about in the slightest.

With a sickening, earth-shattering, deafening _split_ too vast to be understood as anything but pure white noise, the ground beneath them breaks open; splits from horizon to horizon. There is a roar of rage and hunger, millennia in the making. All color drains from everything in one smooth, sickening slurp, retreating and receding like it was never there in the first place. Still screaming, Patton reaches out to Roman, and squeezes his hand tight. He thinks Roman might be squeezing back, but it could just be a spasm.

And with the people he cares about most in this universe or any other all around him, he looks down to see himself standing at the centre of a pupil of an eye bigger than he can possibly comprehend. It’s staring directly back at him. It blinks, slow and steady. Pure, mindbending black on endless grey.

And then it’s _moving_ in an unimaginable rush and the ground is shifting and everyone and everything’s being thrown around carelessly and he loses Logan’s hand, and Patton thinks that he should have told Thomas and everyone else just how deeply and dearly and perfectly he loved them so they all could at least _know_ that before everything ends like this, and his tears are draining away from his face in long glittering streams, being sucked up and out and away, and all above it all there’s a sound that can’t possibly be called _song_ but there’s no other words for it, and –

And then it’s –

And then –

_And –_


	10. remus

See, the thing is... being human? _Fully_ human, fully corporeal, fully de-attached from Thomas and his mind and his feelings and imagination and all that shit? Well, it’s got its positives and its negatives. Remus has a bunch of things he could definitely complain about, at length. For one thing, any body-horror-based gags he has in mind have _actual_ consequences which means he can only ever do them once. Like, say, pulling his eyes out for a fun little eye-themed pun? One-time wonder. Or two, if he takes them out individually, but that means the whole thing won’t hit as hard. And he can’t shapeshift, which _sucks ass._ This is the sort of quaint little fantasy world he absolutely love to terrorize endlessly, now that he has the ability and the agency to do it, but he’s stuck as his boring-yet-fabulous humanoid self! He calls bullshit _._

On the other hand, Remus can actually feel all his internal organs without having to imagine them up first! Definite bonus. And he’d nearly choked to death in the first five minutes of this because he hadn’t been bothering to actually breathe or anything, which had been a hell of an experience. Super educational, in the _fun_ sort of educational way; the sort of educational that Logan fucking hates. Dorkass nerd.

In conclusion, getting to be human is an awesome experience that he’s taking a million bloody detailed mental notes on for future creative endeavours, but if at all possible he’d like the ability to conjure feral cats out of nowhere on a whim back. Conjuring feral cats out of nowhere is _awesome._

And, ugh. Okay. There’s a noise right up close to his ear. A big, loud, piercing noise. Someone’s screaming. Top of the lungs, out-of-their-mind-with-senseless-terror sort of screaming. He’d normally be all for it, but at the moment he can’t fix his eardrums with a snap of the fingers and he really does like to hear what other people are saying about him and the things he’s doing.

Remus squishes Thomas gently, patting the side of his head, because Thomas is the one who’s screaming like he’ll never stop, and apparently hugs calm people down? So maybe this will help. Something something dolphins in the brain, which is something that sounds a lot more fun than it actually is.

Yeah, Remus had been pretty upset before about a lot of things, but that was only because Thomas hadn’t been _right_ and things just aren’t fun when Thomas isn’t in his right mind to make horrified noises and go pale at whatever sick-as-all-hell stunts Remus is pulling. Now they’re both here and Thomas _should_ be fine and he shouldn’t be screaming like this because Remus hasn’t even _done_ anything yet, but... he’s not.

He just doesn’t stop screaming, though. It sounds like his throat is horse and his lungs are bloody-raw but the noise just keeps happening even though it’s thready and weak and drowned out my all the other screaming that’s happening all around them. And that _noise._ Like music, but if music decided to take a vacation to another dimension where the chromatic scale had never been invented.

Jeez, Thomas sounds _wrecked_. His breath is coming out in horrid little pants between wordless yelling and his fingers are clawing at Remus’s back like he’s trying to get him undressed as quickly as humanly possible but can’t remember where the fursuit zipper is.

Remus sighs, and imagines rolling his eyes and them skittering out of his skull and along the ground like lost marbles for a happy little moment. Then opens them. Looks around, gets a decent hold on what he’s seeing and what’s going on. And...

Oh, _right_ , the apocalypse is happening. That’s an entire thing.

Remus’s grip on Thomas tightens. Come to think of it, maybe the screaming _is_ understandable. It might even be justified.

It’s kind of hard to articulate exactly what’s going on right now, because it’s... well, _indescribable_ , in a word. But Remus has always loved putting descriptions to things that should never have rightfully had words assigned to them in the first place, so he’ll give it his best shot.

It’s like if for their entire life they – Remus, Thomas, all of the others, everyone _ever_ – had been living inside a box. A tiny, boring box, with not much decoration or anything really exciting at all in it! But since the box is all they can ever remember having, everyone just assumes that the box _is_ super exciting and fun and that it and everything inside it are the only things that exist in the universe, ever. Except suddenly the box has been split wide open. No, more than that – the box has been completely fucking _obliterated._ Gonezo, donezo, blasted to atoms. And now everybody living inside the box is standing in the rest of the world, blinking out at it in confusion about how _big_ everything is and how many strange unfamiliar things there are. And they haven’t even seen all there is to see of it yet, but they’re still completely overwhelmed. And the person that broke the box open is standing over them with a hammer or something and also they happen to look nothing like a human because there’s too many teeth and too many eyes and – and this is where the metaphor breaks apart, just a bit.

Basically, everything around them has lost any semblance of meaning! Any concrete shapes or figures that Remus can pick out in the whirling, shifting maelstrom that surrounds them become unrecognizable the moment he tries to name them. He can catch glimpses of a shifting body too vast to be comprehended and far-off teeth in what remains of the sky, and then there’s the _eyes_ but that’s about it.

And everything’s lost color, too. Literally all color has been drained out of the world. There’s luminous eye-searing whites and blacks so dark and bottomless that letting Anish Kapoor use them would invoke immediate devastating legal action, and everything else is in greys and monochrome shades that shouldn’t be nearly as piercing as they are.

There’s no other people, no trees, no ground, no animals. Just him and Thomas and the god-thing that’s broken through into this reality. And that thing, it’s somehow simultaneously all around them and very far away from them all at once. It’s the only reason they haven’t been wiped from existence already, it just hasn’t got close enough to swallow them up. Maybe it’s like, its tail is wrapped around them and the world but the actual head’s still way out in space or something? Remus doesn’t know. He’s never actually met an eldritch creature from the dawn of time until now. Hypothetically, it’s a delightful concept. In reality... Remus is still kind of faintly delighted, yeah, but he’d be a lot happier if it wasn’t going to end with literally everything he knows being completely destroyed. He _likes_ the world. It’d be nice if it had kept on existing for a bit longer.

“What’s...?” Thomas’s ashen, washed-out face blinks up at him with dull, watery eyes, because apparently he’s finally finished with screaming – hey, good for him! He doesn’t finish the fragment of the sentence, though. That’s fine. Remus loves fragments. He can work with this.

He hunches his shoulders against the maelstrom and does his best to shield them both from whatever this is while he tries to work out how to respond.

“Well,” he says after an interval of time that could be seconds or could be centuries. “Long story short; I probably shouldn’t have given you the most intense hug of your life, Lovecraft somehow managed to get _something_ right despite all his racist xenophobic fuckery, and we’re all about to die horribly at the hands of an incomprehensible chaos being.”

“Die?” Thomas asks, voice cracking.

“Yep.” There’s a lump in Remus’s throat suddenly, and he doesn’t know why it’s there or what to feel about it. “Uh. Sorry about that.”

“Don’t be,” says Thomas vaguely, and closes his eyes. “Dying sounds... good.” The end of the sentence wavers and fades away into practically nothing, and then he buries his face into Remus’s shoulder and just... clings. That’s probably not great.

Remus looks up and tries to gauge how much time they have left based on the flashes of teeth and the intensity of the howling music, but doing so is just about impossible. And not just because time doesn’t exist anymore. They could be waiting for death here in this impossible place for centuries or it could be over in a matter of seconds without them being any the wiser. There one moment, and gone the next. Ah well; _c’est la vie_ and all that. It’s a tragedy but it was always going to happen one day or another. At least it’s an interesting way to go.

So he just sinks down to his knees, cradling Thomas closer and they just cling to each other. Thomas is so human, so soft. He smells like sweat and fear and his hair is still soaking wet and stinking of mud and grime from the river. Remus buries his face into the damp softness, and breathes it all in.

“We’re going to be okay, just you see,” he says. He’s not Patton, not Janus, not any of the rest of them – he’s not a liar or a comforter or _nice_ in any sense of the word, but... “When this is all over, we’ll be back in the living room with a camera and a catchy tune and a nice bite-sized dilemma, and everyone will be cracking dumb PG jokes like they’re the funniest thing since sliced nipples, and it’ll be _lame,_ but you’ll be having the time of your life; you all will.”

“And you’ll stay?” Thomas murmurs into the fabric of his rumpled, soaked-through shirt.

Remus kisses the crown of his head. Not a sloppy messy kiss or anything with teeth involved, just a simple peck of outright affection. “Yeah,” he says, “yeah, Thomas, I’ll stay.”

Thomas smells gross, filthy, horrible. He smells like home. He’s weak and pathetic and human and Remus loves him inordinately. There’s nobody he’d rather be obliterated from existence in the company of; nobody at all.

A burst of sudden color pierces the chaos just behind them, drawing Remus’s attention. It’s not much, just a pale, wavering yellow sphere in the far, far distance. It looks like it’s going to flicker out against the pressure of the grey-and-black-and-white at any second, but it’s _color._ And silhouetted against it is the sketchy figure of a short man with one hand splayed out upwards. With the other, he’s beckoning to them.

“Shit,” Remus whispers, astonished, and then grabs Thomas around the waist, hauling him upwards like a rag doll as he stumbles to standing. “Come on!”

Thomas makes a noise of unhappy incomprehension. But when Remus tears him away from his current state of clinging and he actually sees what’s happening, something sparks in his eyes. It isn’t quite hope, but it’ll have to do for now. “Are we-?”

“Going to survive this? No fucking clue, might as well give it a go.” Thomas doesn’t look right in monochrome, all pale shades and miserable dull edges. Remus wants his usual spectrum of shades and colors back, wants nothing more than Thomas to get some _spice_ and _zing_ back into him. “You with me?”

Thomas’s eyes seem to focus a bit at this. He nods, takes a breath in. Shudders at the flavor of the air. “Let’s do it.”

They grab for each others’ hands, somehow manage to interlock fingers, and take off together at a run that’s more stumble than sprint. It’s like moving through syrup or congealed blood. And it’s hard to tell who’s dragging who, because sometimes Thomas will fall behind and Remus is practically hauling his limp almost-corpse along by one arm, but at other points, Thomas is charging ahead and cutting through the mire with Remus spiralling behind in his wake, doing his best to avoid the ineffable creatures that cascade and claw at each other all around them.

The world is a series of quickly-intercut optical illusions that refuse to resolve no matter how hard Remus looks, and then only real constant is the already-fading sphere of light in the near distance. Moving towards it is tortuously slow and sickeningly fast all at once, and for a long moment Remus doesn’t think they’re going to be able to make it before the world around them consumes them.

But then they’re right at the sphere and pressing right up against its periphery, and then they break through in a shattering of light and yellow radiance, crashing forwards and tumbling onto the ground in a messy, painful heap. And there’s ground to crash onto, here. Not just patterns of shifting shadows and non-Euclidian forms; _actual_ ground, rough and not properly formed – it’s something like rock, and it bumps and bruises at Remus as they roll across it.

Finally they come to a halt, and although they just huddle there together for a long moment, Remus does think it’s probably a good idea to see exactly what they’re dealing with. He looks up, rolling off Thomas, who’s groaning on the ground.

They’re in a small bubble of sanity, about 20 metres in diameter and half that in height. It’s glowing a faint, sickly-looking yellow that’s mostly opaque. Outside, the maelstrom and chaos of what the world has become can still be seen, but everything seems to be moving a lot slower.

And inside the bubble... there’s color. Not a _lot –_ as Remus looks down at Thomas to see if he’s still breathing and thinking and doing all those necessary human things (he is, mostly), he sees that his skin is still pale and washed-out, but there’s a tinge of shade to it; to all of them. Like they’ve been shoved through a million equally trashy Instagram filters.

They’re not the only ones here. The Two-Faced King is here, because he’d been the one calling to them to come in the first place. His hand is still extended upwards, fingers splayed outwards. Apparently he’s the one that’s keeping this bubble going. He glances at Remus and gives him one short, exhausted nod before returning to concentrating.

But he’s not really the one Remus is concerned about. He doesn’t even care about the fact that the Octavians are here too, or that the Erlking and his terrible fucking traitor of a human mirror boyfriend are here, or that the fish guy is holding the tattoo-kid in his lap at the far side of the bubble. No, there’s five _far_ more important people here.

Thomas’s eyes go wide and then fill with tears, and then he’s scrambling across the rocky terrain of this tiny bubble, and he practically collides with Virgil, who’s doing much the same. They immediately embrace, wrapping each other into a desperate hug that’s almost violent in its intensity. They look like they’re trying to melt together into one being, or break each other’s bones.

Less than a second later, Patton is there, trembling and uncoordinated, tears still drying on his face. He throws his own arms around them, sobbing something about how much he loves them, the words barely making any sense at all. Then Logan skids into them from behind. His glasses are broken, eyes are bloodshot, and he’s making a dreadful sobbing keening noise from the back of his throat as he fumbles to get his arms around as much of them all as physically possible. Janus’s hair is dishevelled and there are painful-looking scratches running down his forearms and the side of his face, and he’s pushing the others away so he can hold Thomas close and tight and fast, muttering promises and breakneck confessions that, for once, are completely unguarded and undeniably true.

Roman crashes into Remus in a furious tangle of limbs and emotions. Remus is convinced for a moment that they’re going to start ripping each others’ throats out, but then his brother is clinging to him and pulling him over to the others and repeating, “ _Thank you thank you thank you_ ,” over and over and over again, and now Remus is just confused. Everyone’s holding each other and hugging and sobbing and shaking like it’s some kind of bizarre platonic orgy of feelings. And now he’s in there too and he’s patting Logan awkwardly on the back and holding Patton’s hand and trying not to reflexively crush it, as he stares out at the thin film of the bubble separating them from the everythingness outside.

“Nobody else is coming,” says the Fisher-King, voice cracking and eyes downcast, even as he holds Bee tightly in his lap. “You need to seal us off.”

The Two-Faced King’s two faces twist in something like bitter grief. “I can –”

“Seal it,” Tomas Alexander says. He’s holding the unconscious, crumpled form of the fallen Erlking, cradling him with a soft tenderness that seems completely at odds with the harshness of what he’s saying. He doesn’t look as scared as everyone else. He just looks... peaceful. Like he’s been expecting this all along. Like he doesn’t care what’s going to happen next. “We don’t have the time to wait for anyone else.” He pauses, and then adds, “ _Seal it._ ”

The Two-Faced King squeezes his eyes shut tightly like he’s in intense pain at the very thought, but he nods. Brings his hands down in a swift, sharp movement, from upturned to palms flat against the ground. The bubble glows and flares just a bit brighter, and then all movement outside it ceases in its entirety – slowing down from a snail’s pace to completely nonexistent. The shapes and shadows and eyes and teeth hang still in a silent, incomprehensible tableau all around them. The Two-Faced King stumbles, and then falls to the ground to sit, exhausted. “It’s done.”

“What’s done?” says Roman. “What’s going on?”

“Within this bubble, time is now untethered from the rest of the world,” the Fisher-King supplies, looking over at them. There’s fear there in those ancient eyes, but it’s a resigned sort of fear. The terror of someone who has no fight left whatsoever. “Until it ends, no time outside will pass. It is a... last resort, you could say. To give us extra time when we have no time left.”

“How long?” asks Fairy-Octavian.

“An hour,” says the Two-Faced King wearily, and coils up, shoulders hunching as he ducks both faces away from view. “I’d advise you to make peace with any gods you still believe in, while you still can.”

There’s a long, long moment of horrified comprehension as everyone seems to register what he means by this.

“That’s it?” demands Janus, incredulous. “I’m – I’m _sorry,_ that’s _it?_ We’re all just going to sit around and wait for this _magic spell_ of yours to run out of time, at which point we all, oh, curl up and die?”

“There’s nothing else we _can_ do,” says Tomas evenly. He barely seems distressed in the slightest. His arms tighten around the still-unconscious fairy king cradled in his lap. “It’s over. She’s broken through, and if _you’ve_ got a way of stopping the Crawling Chaos from consuming us all, I’d be thrilled to hear it.”

Thomas emerges somewhat from the tangled pile of bodies he’s at the centre of. He doesn’t let go of a single one of them. His voice is still throaty and raspy and broken when he speaks, but it’s at least clear and audible as he says, “Who? Who are you talking about?”

“Oh, does it even _matter_ at this point?” the Two-Faced King snaps bitterly.

“I...” Thomas trails off, and looks at Remus, and then over at the others, one-by-one. Frightened, pale, worried faces. All washed out to near-grayscale, none with any trace of hope left.

Logan is the one who speaks up, surprisingly steady in tone.

“I want to understand,” he says, and pushes himself up into a proper sitting position. “If we’re all going to die at the hands of – of – _whatever_ this is, I would at least like to have a rudimentary, _basic_ knowledge of _why_ any of this is happening. What is this? Is this because of us, something we did? Have we inadvertently caused a cataclysmic catastrophe through – through _unknowing happenstance?_ ”

At this, Patton lets out what seems to be a low, involuntary moan of despair.

“It wasn’t you,” the Fisher-King reassures them, immediately.

“Like hell it wasn’t,” Octavian-the-human snaps. His dark eyes are even more pronounced than before in the low light. He points at Remus, face tight with fury. Remus’s hand goes up to his chest reflexively, eyes widening in an overexaggerated _who, me?_ even though he’s not really properly feeling it at the moment. “ _That one_ stopped the sacrifice. If he had just held back for even _one minute longer –_ ”

“He didn’t know!” exclaims his changeling counterpart. “You can’t blame him for not knowing. If anything, the fault of this lies with – ”

Sudden silence.

“Oh, yes,” says Janus. “ _Do_ go on. I simply cannot wait to hear where this is going. Please, relay to us right now in excruciating detail – _whose_ fault is it that the world is ending, exactly?”

“That would be mine,” says Tomas Linus Alexander, head bowed.

“No,” objects the Fisher-King.

“ _Well,_ ” contends the Two-Faced King with a grimace.

There is the faintest of groans, and then the Erlking is sitting up. His perfect shiny long hair is dishevelled and askew; there’s blood running from a sizable gash in his forehead. Tomas is trying to get him to lie down again, but the Erlking waves him off. He’s panting and letting out little noises of exquisite agony, and all of the faint color in this bubble of safety seems to have drained completely from his face.

“You want to know how this all came to pass?” he rasps. “I can show you. It’s the least I can do at this point.” He gestures with one pale, long-fingered hand. The nails had been perfectly filed at one point, but now they’re bloody and ragged from the effort of clawing at his face and skin. “Come here, and – and, sit. Hold hands, I think. The easiest way to do this...”

“You’re not strong enough,” Tomas argues, pressing his forehead gently to the Erlking’s. “Please, love, just – ”

“ _No_ ,” replies the Erlking, and slides back to sit at the edge of the bubble. “No, it’s not as if I’m going to be using my energy for anything else. Tam Lin, let go of me. Let me show them.”

They form a rough circle on the ragged ground, all fourteen of them. They’re pretty much crammed shoulder-to-shoulder; there’s not enough room for anything else. There’s a strange awkwardness to the way that they all fumble to join hands. It _shouldn’t_ matter that they’re doing it because nothing matters anymore, but really that makes the action all the more surreal.

“This is a long story,” the Fisher-King says. “Do we really have time-?”

“I’ll do my best to condense it to the important parts,” replies the Erlking, holding tight to Tomas’s hand on one side, and somewhat less tightly to Patton’s, on his other side. He hasn’t bothered to wipe the blood off of his face.

There’s no spark of light, no magical chanting, no runes and no noise. The Erlking’s fingers just twitch, ever so slightly, and then –

And then Remus is somewhere else.

*

It’s hundreds of years ago. Remus doesn’t know how he knows this, he just does – it’s an undeniable fact, just like the fact that he’s suddenly all alone, and that he isn’t at all where he was just a second ago.

He’s standing in the middle of a huge hallway that’s been formed by a single ridiculously long and large tree wrapping around and around in a seemingly endless spiral. And the light of the rising sun is filtering through one end of it, illuminating a figure in long midnight-blue robes who’s speed-walking right towards him.

Remus squints, trying to get a good look at who it is, and he’s still squinting when the figure walks right through him like he’s not even there. He feels a delightfully unpleasant sensation that seems to be his body rearranging itself to accommodate for the sudden intrusion, and has to fight the urge to make an appropriately disturbing noise of pleasure, because now there’s people talking and he _is_ more than a little curious as to what’s going on here.

He turns and sees that the person in blue robes is... Logan?

“According to the entirety of the Court, some kind of calamity is on the edge of bringing destruction to this world and every other,” Logan is saying dryly, as he comes to a halt next to Patton, who’s standing at a set of wooden railings barring off a open-air aperture that overlooks a familiar forest. “You wouldn’t happen to have anything to do with the spreading of this particular rumour, would you?”

Patton shrugs easily and unapologetically. “Don’t you think they deserve to know?”

He looks weird without his usual getup – whatever he’s wearing looks like it’s been made out of actual moth wings, which is objectively _cool_ but Remus can’t imagine actual-Patton getting anywhere near a costume like that in a million years.

But then again, this isn’t actually Patton, just like Logan isn’t actually Logan. It’s some kind of memory-metaphor or magical simulation or something. Remus has a feeling he knows exactly who Logan and Patton are meant to represent. It’s not as if it’s a big leap of logic or anything.

“I don’t see that there’s any point in causing unnecessary panic among our people,” says not-really-Logan. No, it’s far easier to just call him Logan. If it looks like a Logan and walks like a Logan and talks like a Logan... “Especially since this is all _baseless conjecture._ ”

Patton’s expression as he leans against the railing is half-exhaustion, half a weird sort of fondness. “Idneidr’s predictions were clear enough. Since when has he been the sort of person to do things like _conjecture baselessly_?”

Logan’s scowl is fierce. “Idneidr is as two-faced as they come. He wouldn’t be getting involved in our affairs if it didn’t benefit him somehow.”

“Hear him out,” Patton begs. “Let him show you his evidence, at the very least. Please?”

Logan is silent for a very long moment, then he sighs. “Very well,” he says. “I’ll hear him out. But only because you asked nicely.”

The scene fuzzes over and reforms, and now they’re standing in what Remus recognizes as the Erlking’s throne room. Both Patton and Janus are here, standing and watching as Logan paces back and forth in obvious distress.

“But why _now?_ ” he’s asking.

“Disaster doesn’t need a reason _,_ my lord,” Janus says, arms lightly crossed. He makes the title sound like an insult without putting any particular emphasis on it. “If every empire at the peak of its power and prosperity was immune to calamity, the world would be a utopia. As it is...”

“I’d appreciate it if we could put aside all of our petty squabbles for the moment,” says Patton, who’s not speaking like normal Patton does at all. He hasn’t even said a single pun yet. Disconcerting. “Seeing as our reality is on the brink of destruction and all. Is there _anything_ we can do? What do we know about this... being?”

Janus sighs and sits down on the grassy ground, cross-legged. “Not all that much, I’m afraid. Tears have already begun to open up in the more far-flung regions of the continent. That’s how I learned that she was approaching in the first place.”

“ _She?_ ” Patton’s face is kind of hilariously astonished.

“Everyone who’s seen through the cracks seems quite emphatic about that particular pronoun, yes,” Janus says. “Names were thrown around, in-between all the screaming and thrashing and foaming at the mouths. I believe ‘Crawling Chaos’ was one of the most frequent. ‘Stalker among the Stars’ was another, but _apparently_ her most preferred of all these names is _Nyarlathotep_.”

“Nyar...?” Logan trails off. “I am... distinctly unfamiliar.”

“You and everybody else I’ve talked to,” Janus agrees, and then shakes his head. “Anything else communicated by people who’ve seen into whatever dimension these cracks in the world lead to has been violent, incoherent, and involves an extravagant amount of self-harm. All I could learn from the last of them was that ‘Nyarlathotep’ seems to be waking up from a very long sleep indeed, and when she _does_ finally come into full consciousness, it’s not going to be pleasant for any of us.”

Patton makes an unfamiliar movement with his hands. Remus can sort of tell that it’s supposed to be a religious thing. Religious hand motions have this hilarious kind of reflexive reverent jerkiness to them to them. It’s kind of like the polar opposite of flipping someone off.

Logan has gone tense and taut with a horrified seriousness that he’s never seen on the real Logan’s face. “Advise people to stay away from any more cracks, should they appear,” he orders, and kneads at his forehead vigorously. “...We need to learn more. Rituals, spells, _anything_ either of you can think of. Start with seals and bindings; see if we can upscale them. And we need to hurry.”

Blur. Reform. The three of them – four with Remus, but he doesn’t really count because he doesn’t technically exist here! – are now sitting around an ancient wooden table in a library. All of them look _exhausted,_ like they’ve been fucking nonstop for weeks on end and not even bothering to enjoy it. Piles of books and scrolls and tipped-over bottles of ink surround them.

“This is monstrous,” Patton moans, head buried in his hands. His fingers are ink-stained and visibly chapped, and the others look about the same. “I refuse to believe we’re even considering this.”

“If you have any other options, I’d love to hear them,” Janus sighs. He sits up, slowly and painfully, and the bones of his back crack audibly as he does. “But the fact remains that we _don’t have all that much time._ You’ve read the reports. The cracks are getting bigger, and they’re moving closer to the town. If you still want to protect all of your precious humans, we’ll have to act fast. I doubt they’ll fare much better against seeing the Crawling Chaos than any of us have.”

“Quite apart from that,” says Logan sharply, “what this ritual calls for is... if the ravings of our damned are to be believed, it’s absolutely _nothing_ compared to what Nyarlathotep will do to us when she does break through to our world.”

“Human lives are _not_ nothing,” Patton objects, head shooting up.

“One life every seven years?” Logan says, and laughs humorlessly. “It might as well be.”

“ _For the rest of eternity?_ ” Patton’s shaking his head. “It’s unsustainable!”

“It _is?_ ” says Janus, eyes widening mockingly. “Dear me. I seem to have forgotten the fact that we’re going to eventually run out of our finite supply of humans. You’re right, that _is_ the sort of thing that would throw this plan completely askew.”

“I oppose this,” says Patton, standing up. He doesn’t look at all amused by this. His mouth goes thin, and then he adds, “I oppose this _violently._ I will not let you kill innocent people for the sake of –”

“For the sake of every other life in existence,” Logan says flatly.

“We don’t know if that’s really the case,” Patton says weakly.

“We can’t afford to risk it if it _is,_ ” Janus snaps. “And besides, what do you _really_ think is going to happen when Nyarlathotep wakes up completely? That she’ll be coming around to visit our dimension for a nice cup of a tea and a friendly dignified discussion about the weather?”

Patton takes in a very deep breath, and then pushes himself away from the table. Away he stalks, through the bookshelves, and out of sight.

“You know we’re right!” Janus yells at his departing back, but there’s no response apart from a distant, echoing slam of a door.

“The soul needs to be willingly given,” Logan murmurs, shifting a book slightly so he can see what’s written on the pages just that much better, and he looks up at Janus. “Any ideas?”

“One or two,” Janus says grimly. “Let’s see...”

Several days later. It’s the castle courtyard. Patton and Logan are facing off, glaring at each other and panting with exertion. Logan even has a _sword,_ and judging by the blood pouring from Patton’s leg, he’s already got a few good swipes in. Janus is off to the side of this, vibrating with unhappy nervous tension. Remus kind of wishes he had popcorn right now, because this looks like it’s going to be amazingly entertaining.

“You’re a _monster!_ ” Patton is exclaiming. “There’s got to be a better way than this and you know it, you just don’t want to try any harder now that you’ve found the _easiest way_ – ”

“If you interfere with this _one more time_ ,” Logan snarls.

“I’ll interfere all I like, you will _not_ kill innocents for the sake of – ”

“Don’t hurt him any more,” Janus yells, overlapping. “He’s only concerned about the townsfolk! It’s misguided, yes, but –”

“Damn the two of you!” Logan spits. “I am _trying_ to save us _all,_ and you’re just –” He lets out a shriek of wordless rage, and gestures sharply with both of his hands.

Ozone crackles.

Janus throws himself at Patton, curling around him as best he can in the few seconds he has as a bolt of sickly-white light erupts from Logan’s outstretched hands. The majority of it hits Janus right in the back and when he flings his head back, screaming in agony, the air around it wavers like a heatstroke waiting to happen and his face doubles over and blurs into two different and distinct faces. The amount of light that hits Patton coils around him, burrows into his chest and sinks its fangs through his already-wounded leg, and now he’s crying out in shock and pain too.

Remus glances over to see Logan’s reaction to all of this, and it’s absolutely _horrified_. He looks on the brink of tears. He says, “No, wait, I didn’t – ” but before he can finish, Janus lets out a doubled-over growl of complete rage and yellow light envelops both him and Patton. And then they’re gone.

It could be minutes later or it could be days. Patton and Janus, both looking dreadfully ragged, by the river in the forest. Janus is shaking and his form is wavering at the edges every so often, and there’s blood still seeping sluggishly from Patton’s leg, and it shows no sign of stopping. They’re in the middle of a ferocious shouting match.

“ – won’t drag me back into this, this isn’t my problem anymore-! – ”

“ – just a spineless _coward_ , only fighting when your life’s in danger – if you cared, you’d help me – I can’t move on my own!”

“Yes, I rather think that was the point!” Janus snaps, and whirls around. “The world as we know it is in no danger of being destroyed, as things stand. And I have no wish for either of us to be hurt any more by this! Drag yourself up to the mountain and argue with him some more, if you’d like, but leave me out of it!”

“At least help me to find somewhere to – ” says Patton.

“I’m leaving!” Janus declares, and indeed, does start walking away with purpose.

“Help me!” Patton snaps again.

No reply.

“ _Please_ , Idneidr! Help me!”

At that – at the third plea for help in a row – Janus freezes in place. Stiff as a board, eyes wild. He doesn’t breathe, doesn’t blink. A range of emotions spill over his face. Shock, fear, rage, the whole gamut.

“What did you do?” he says, turning, rage creeping into his voice. “ _What did you do?_ ”

Then they’re gone. And in a furious flood of images, Remus watches as nearly fifty humans drown in the river, one-by-one. It must be the sort of thing that occurs over the course of many, many years, but it all goes by in less than a minute. Their expressions range from horror to rage to a calm acceptance as the fae court around them dances and sings them through the cracks to become part of a shield for their world that they can’t possibly comprehend.

All the while, Logan watches this happen, alone. Grief and resolve war in his eyes.

And then it’s fifteen years ago, and there’s Roman in the town, charming all the men and making all the women laugh, and plucking out songs on his lute with unearthly precision and skill. He’s loved there, deeply and fondly, despite being fae of origin. And then Remus finds himself in the forest, surrounded by trees and fairy creatures, and he knows he’s loved there too, despite being human. He catches flashes of Janus teaching him curses and rituals and all number of fiddly magical things, and himself calling across the river to a boat-bound Patton.

Only a few years later. Roman’s in the forest, and he offers a cloak near-identical to his own to a puzzled Remus, eyes bright with excitement as he explains the circumstances of their birth and switching. And as he speaks, Remus can feel the excitement in his own eyes dying as a cold bitterness takes up residence under his skin.

He tells Roman he never wants to see him in the woods ever again, spits in his face – rips the cloak up in a fit of anger, but never stops wearing it.

And two years after that –

“Good evening,” says Thomas as he approaches. He’s on the back of a horse, riding it like an absolute pro. He looks very dashing, too, all decked out in light chainmail armour and a tunic. He almost looks more like Roman than Roman does. Which is funny, because Roman’s actually right there too, sitting on the side of the road and playing around with a brand-new lute. “Is this the way to Kadath Castle?”

“It is, although I have no earthly idea why you’d want to go there,” Roman replies. “And I don’t think I know you. What’s your name, stranger?”

“Oh, you won’t get it from that easily!” Thomas exclaims, grinning. “But my friends call me Tam Lin. So why don’t we start there?”

“Octavian,” rejoins Roman, and strums out a bright chord. “An excellent place to start! And from there, I’ll ask you – why in the name of everything that’s holy and many things that _aren’t_ would you willingly want to traipse your way up to the Erlking’s palace?”

“Oh,” says Thomas. Something dull and hopeless sweeps over his face, dimming the bright grin. _“That._ Well, you see...” The hopelessness fades almost as quickly as it had come. His smile re-emerges, becomes conspiratorial; gleefully naughty. “I’m planning to seduce a fairy.”

Thomas, in the mountain. Thomas, chatting idly with the fairy court, roaming the halls, helping out where he can. And then Thomas in the town below, doing much the same.

Back in the halls again. Logan, coming up behind him. Thomas turns at the sudden presence, and startled in sudden panic that seems very, _very_ gay in flavor.

“Your majesty!” Thomas says, and he _is_ blushing. “It’s a pleasure to meet you at last.”

“And I you,” replies Logan. His face betrays nothing but his eyes say, _new sacrifice._ “Tam Lin. I’ve heard a lot of you from the court. You’re quite a busy man, aren’t you?”

Thomas ducks his head with a little smile. “I’ve got to keep myself occupied somehow. You’d know all about that, though – managing the entire region, all by yourself. You do impressive work.”

“I think I should like to dine with you this evening,” Logan remarks. “If you’re amenable to that, of course.”

“Very amenable,” replies Thomas. “Forgive me if I don’t eat anything – I like my free will as it is – but I hope the pleasure of my company can make up for that. I know the pleasure of yours will do it for me,” he adds with a very attractive roguish grin.

“You know, Tam Lin,” says Logan, reluctantly charmed, “I think I could grow to like you.”

And then it’s a montage, of sorts.

Thomas waves to a boat-bound Patton from across the river, whose eyes brighten with something like hope as he waves back and gestures for him to come across. Thomas hops neatly through the water, talking animatedly at Patton about the state of affairs up at the mountain castle – apparently the two of them are acquainted already, and this is a regular thing for them.

A blur, and it’s Thomas and Roman crashing and stumbling through the undergrowth together as Roman strums at his lute and composes suggestive limericks about a young man falling head-over-heels-in-love and laughs uproariously and affectionately at Thomas, who is blushing bright scarlet but grinning all the same.

All in all, he does a good job of hiding that grim, grey sadness of his, but Remus isn’t an _idiot._ He hasn’t carved both of his eyes out of their sockets, not yet, which means he can see it. This Tam Lin fellow is exceptionally good at pretending.

Blur. Thomas knocks neatly on the door of an afterthought of a house, and waits patiently for the door to open – which it does, almost immediately.

A tired, frowning Janus looks out at him with obvious disdain. He says, without preamble, “I have no wish to become acquainted with another one of the Erlking’s septennial _projects_. Kindly leave me alone.”

“I’ve heard that if I want you to let me in, all I have to do is ask nicely,” Thomas replies, and then shrugs. “Or, you know. Three times in a row.”

Janus’s expression turns near-apocalyptic. “So he’s giving out the details of the curse that he himself inflicted to any old mortal that graces his sheets,” he snaps, acidic and short. “Perfectly charming. I ask you once more: _leave._ ”

“I think you’ll want to hear me out,” Thomas says. His expression is serious. “You see, it’s the Erlking that I wanted to speak with you about...”

And then Remus is perched right next to Thomas on a high branch of an extraordinarily tall tree, and the sudden flip of being right in the middle of a scene rather than lurking voyeuristically off to the side gives him giddy whiplash.

Thomas says, “He really does care about you, you know.”

“Too little, too late,” Remus is replying before he can even work out what they’re talking about. “I like you, Tam Lin, I really do, but you’re beating a dead horse’s rotting ashes at this point. There’s nothing left to salvage between the two of us.”

Blur. Shift. Thomas is walking through the Erlking’s gardens, face upturned towards the sun – happy, content. Virgil, in a cloak, watching him warily from behind a tree.

“I know you’re there,” Thomas says after a moment. “If you want to talk to me, go ahead and do it. I don’t bite, unlike a lot of other people here.”

Virgil hesitates, and then slinks out from the shadows, cloak dragging along behind him.

“You’re the Erlking’s human,” he says, and there’s a strange melodic undertone to his voice when he says it. He’s practically drowning in the oversized cloak he’s wearing. It’s hideously adorable and Remus wants to squeeze him to _death;_ squish him like a tiny little bug and stomp on the pieces.

Thomas appears to think so too, based off the twitch of his mouth and the little glimmer of amusement in his eyes that clearly he’s trying to hide. “So they call me. Personally, I prefer to be called Tam Lin – hello.”

Virgil takes a sudden step back. The expression on his face is all _oh shit he heard me,_ which doesn’t make sense because there’s no way Thomas couldn’t have heard him, unless you consider...

“You speak the southern languages,” he says, clearly surprised. Still with that melodic little undertone.

“Just one or two.” Thomas lets out a little laugh, and scratches at the side of his head. “I travelled around quite a lot before coming here. But what about you – aren’t you a little young to be so far away from home?”

“I’m old _enough_ ,” Virgil protests, sounding grumpy. His body language and voice are distinctly pre-teen-ish, which is also hilarious to watch on his adult big-boy body. “I know my way through this mountain just as well as any true member of the court.”

“Maybe you could show me around, then?” Thomas offers, even though it’s pretty obvious that he knows his way around the castle really well by now and he doesn’t need it in the least.

Virgil eyes him up-and-down for a long moment before saying, “I can hear your heart from here, you know.”

“You can?” Thomas looks kind of thrown by this sudden twist in the conversation.

Virgil hums, noncommittally. “Hearing hearts is my thing. You’ve got a nice strong one. Could probably hear it from a mile off.” He extends a hand to Thomas decisively. “I’ll show you around, as long as you can keep up. I’m pretty fast, you know.”

“You know what? I do believe I can work with that.”

There’s flashes of Thomas in town and in the forest and at the castle, surrounded by familiar faces. Laughing, talking animatedly, helping out with all number of tasks. A patchwork-pocket coat-clad Joan and him sharing lunch on the dock over the river, skipping stones across the water. Friends and family and Sides alike, all here in this strange fantasy world as stand-ins for their counterparts.

And in the midst of all this, Logan – the Erlking, as Logan – continues to court Tomas-as-Thomas. They ride, they dine, they walk through the halls of the mountainside castle with their eyes and teeth glinting in glorious sunlight. It’s all horribly romantic; Roman’s probably eating it up. Even more so because you can actually see Logan thawing. Going from ‘I’m only seducing this man because it’s my dastardly plan’ to ‘fuck, there might actually be something there’.

Things slow down a bit, here. It’s nearing the end of the seven years, Remus knows – both because it’s somehow another undeniable fact in his head, and because of what he’s currently seeing and hearing in front of him.

Logan is lying flat on his back on the grassy floor of the throne room with a look of horrified devastation on his face. He’s not moving. The only sign that he’s actually alive is his intermittent, slow blinking.

Virgil, still in that oversized cloak, is sprawled out on the throne itself. His legs are kicked up casually sideways over the armrest, his head is tilted backwards easily. He’s shredding marigolds into colorful scraps and humming under his breath.

“You got attached, didn’t you,” he says after a long moment. It’s not a question.

“I got attached,” Logan agrees miserably, and raises his hands to bury his face in them. “What am I going to _do_? I can’t let him die, not like this...”

“Well, your lover is pretty clever,” says Virgil, throwing the last of his marigold shreds into the air like confetti. “I’d try talking to him. Explaining things. Maybe he’ll have some sort of amazing idea to fix everything.”

Flash! Logan and Thomas, on the path outside the mountain. Logan’s wearing glorious orange-and-red autumnal clothes, Thomas is bundled up tightly in layers of wool. The wind whips against Remus and chills him, imaginary as it is.

“Of course I will,” says Thomas. Not a hint of fear or trepidation in his eyes – he’s remarkably cavalier about it, all things considered.

“I think you’re rather missing the point of this!” Logan exclaims. “I don’t want you to sacrifice yourself for my cause! I’m asking you to help me find someone else who _will!_ ”

Thomas frowns. “Why? You said it yourself – I’m the perfect candidate. You also happen to be running low on time, if this doesn’t work the... whole world is destroyed, correct?”

“...Correct,” Logan agrees reluctantly.

“And obviously that isn’t a desirable outcome. And it’s not as if I want anybody else to die _instead_ of me –”

“But I do!”

Thomas freezes, and slowly meets Logan’s eyes. “I...”

“Because I love you,” says Logan, lowly and desperately. “Do you understand that? You are worth _far_ more to me than any of those mortals down below.”

Remus is overcome with a sudden wave of unfamiliar discomfort. This is entirely too intimate of a scene to be played out through these bodies. Logan and Thomas don’t own the words they’re speaking, and it’s... mm, _no,_ he doesn’t care for this at all. He should, probably, it’s exactly the kind of weird shit that he’d usually be all up in, but this isn’t the time or the place. 

There’s such a long moment of silence after this. A multitude of expressions filter across Thomas’s face in such quick succession that it’s hard to categorize them.

“All right,” he whispers, and takes Logan’s hand, painfully tender. And then again, louder: “All right. Don’t worry about a thing. I’ll find someone else to take my place by the end of the month.”

“And then we’ll be together,” Logan says with a beautiful smile that real-Logan would never be caught dead with.

“Together forever,” agrees Thomas, and smiles back.

And Remus has known Janus long enough to be able to tell a blatant lie of a smile when he sees one, so it’s not entirely surprising when the scene flickers across to Thomas sitting cross-legged on the bed in the Two-Faced King’s house, nursing a cup of tea, and saying, “So? Is there any way to trick the Erlking into thinking I’m another person?”

“He’s not going to be happy about it,” Janus tells him, mouth set in a grim line. He’s kneading dough ferociously on the countertop, pummelling it as if it’s the sole source of all his problems in life.

“You’re not answering the question,” Thomas notes.

Janus sighs, and pauses kneading. “Tam Lin, you’ve found this alternate sacrifice of yours. You’ve asked me to draw him towards the forest for you, you know the Erlking’s going to be more than happy to accept him as substitute – and if he dies, you get to spend the rest of your handsome, cheerful mortal life with him. Frankly, I don’t see why you don’t just _kill_ the damned man. There’s nothing to lose by doing so.”

“We’re not discussing why I don’t want to kill an innocent person to save my own life,” Thomas says, clearly exasperated. “We’ve been over this. _Several_ times.”

“I will never understand humans.” Janus slowly shakes his head. “Well, I can swap his heart out for yours. That might just do the trick.”

“How will that do anything?”

Janus wipes flour-stained hands off on the apron he’s wearing and makes a back-and-forth gesture with his hands, indicating casual heart-swappage. “The sacrifice takes hold on your replacement human. You drink a specific brew of kill-and-cure herbs, the hearts get swapped back, you end up killing yourself in your desperate bid for martyrdom. Everyone’s happy! Well, except the Erlking, presumably.”

“Perfect,” Thomas says, smiling in relief. “Thank you. Really, thank you.”

“He has to agree to it, though,” Janus adds, jabbing a finger roughly in Thomas’s direction. “That could be a problem. Think that through before you go bounding across dimensions, won’t you?”

Thomas takes a sip of tea. “If my counterpart is anything like me, I don’t think getting his consent will end up being much of a problem.”

“You know, you may have a point there,” Janus says thoughtfully. Then his gaze sharpens. “Does anyone else know about your death wish? Or was I the only one you spilled your guts to?”

“No, nobody else knows about this,” Thomas replies. “Only you. And I don’t want to die. I just know that there’s no other way to fix this.” And... hm, that’s another lie, isn’t it? He’s not even trying to make it very obvious. “And why would I have a death wish?”

“Oh Tomas, oh Tam Lin; oh, my dear, dear friend.” Janus shakes his head, and laughs. “Nobody who goes looking to seduce a fairy king has a functioning self-preservation instinct, and you are most certainly no exception to that.”

And then:

Quick flashes of a cloak-clad Thomas borrowing one of the Fisher-King’s small fleet of boats, riding it up the river. Walking through the misty, indistinct space between worlds – hiding behind trees and listening as a group of people crash noisily and happily through the undergrowth, singing and talking and laughing. Seeing as one of them plucks berries from a bush and tucks them away into a bag.

Later; walking up to a familiar house and walking out again only minutes later with an expression of satisfaction on his face. He no longer looks quite so much like Thomas. His hair is messier, ginger; face a slightly different shape, as if the narrative has given up trying to fit Thomas into his shoes. Back to the forest; waiting for hours. Catching his counterpart as he stumbles into the trees, leading him to the boat. Down the river, up the mountainside on horseback. Leaving him with the Erlking.

Virgil, lurking in the shadows. Glancing between the departing figure of his friend and this new stranger in something like confusion. And then, resolve on his face.

The images speed up. Tomas is now at the Two-Faced King’s house, speaking rapidly with him, brow creased in worry – looking out the window nervously. And then he’s standing in the doorway, watching as Thomas and the rest of them turn in shock. Everyone in a circle on the ground. The fairy court, riding away to the river. The sacrifice. Remus throwing himself into the river (and _man_ does it look even cooler from this angle; he only very slightly regrets doing that). Nyarlathotep breaking through, and then a series of shattered, fragmented half-coherent recollections of chaos –

*

– and then everybody jolts backwards as the Erlking rips his hands away from the circle.

“Oh,” says Logan, one hand raising to his mouth as if he’s going to be sick. “ _Oh._ So you were –”

“Trying to save the world,” Roman breathes. “All of you were.”

“Most of us were,” the Erlking corrects haltingly, determinedly avoiding eye contact with the Fisher-King.

“That explains so much,” Thomas says, and releases the hands of Logan and Virgil, on either side of him, so he can massage at his forehead. “It’s a bit too late for any of it, but. _So_ much.”

“I never said it was going to be any help to us,” replies the Erlking; closes his eyes. “But you did want to understand.”

The eyeshadow underneath Virgil’s eyes has been darker than usual since this all began, stretching down across his cheeks and making him look even more washed-out than the rest of him. And it really does add to the effect quite a lot as he sits up straight, eyes flashing with abject fury, and snaps, “Okay, I’ve got a question for _all_ of you. Why the _fuck_ didn’t you just talk to each other?”

“Now really isn’t the time to be laying accusations,” begins the Fisher-King.

“Don’t care,” Virgil dismisses. “Like, pretty much all of you, but also?” He points right at Tomas. “ _Especially_ you. If you had just, I don’t know, _told_ us what you were planning? _Told us that you weren’t planning to kill Thomas?_ We wouldn’t have come running, and Remus wouldn’t have come crashing in to play the idiot hero, and we wouldn’t have accidentally _summoned a dark god into this universe._ And _you!_ ” He whirls to point at the Two-Faced King. “You could’ve told us! At any time! But all you did was say some... some, fucking, _ominous garbage_ and you made us think that Thomas was going to _die!_ ”

“Would you have believed me?” asks the Two-Faced King glumly.

“Probably not, but you could’ve convinced us!” Virgil says. “It just –” An ungodly sound of frustration. “We are going to die! Because of _miscommunication!_ That is my least favorite plot device in movies and also, coincidentally, my _least favorite way to die!_ ”

“Miscommunication, great – that’s all in the past, though,” Remus points out. “What do we do _now,_ is what I want to know.”

The Two-Faced King shakes his head. “I already told you. Wait for the spell to unravel; wait to die. This is it. Throw your blame around all you want, yell as loud as you can, but _nothing comes after this._ ”

“For centuries, we’ve been wondering what Nyarlathotep wanted from our world,” says the Erlking, gazing out through the wavering, flickering film of the protective bubble. “The greatest minds of the court theorized endlessly over it. Some proposed that she wanted to twist it into an unrecognizable hellscape to be used as a vast temple for her own worship. Others thought she’d want to take living beings into her own dimension to experiment upon and play with. I was of the opinion that we were needed for some incomprehensible ritual she’d been in the process of completing. But it seems as if we were all wrong.” He breathes out a short, sharp breath. “It seems that all she’s ever seen the entirety of reality as is a light, inconsequential _snack._ ”

“That can’t be it,” says Patton, and looks around at everyone gathered in the bubble. “Right?”

None of the other-world people seem very enthused by this. Most of them flat-out turn away, unwilling to engage. It’s like they’ve all given up already. Bee makes a little noise of Italian-flavored dismay, and then just shrugs.

Remus has a feeling that the only reason Sanders et al _hasn’t_ given up is because they just don’t know any better, but he’s not going to mention that. Complete despair isn’t a good look on any of them.

Virgil hesitates, wavering. He looks over at Thomas, who has his head down and appears to be thinking intently about something, and then says, “Right. Of course not, I _refuse_ to die like this.”

“That’s the fucking spirit,” Remus enthuses, clapping him entirely too hard on the back.

“Obviously none of us _want_ to take this lying down,” agrees Janus. “But then almost instantly the problem becomes, as Roman so succinctly put it – _what do we do?_ I don’t know about you, but I haven’t the first clue as to how to stop the apocalypse.”

Silence. Is it Remus’s imagination, or is the barrier flickering?

“Let’s talk it out,” says Thomas suddenly, lifting his head. He smiles, a hint of his usual spark creeping back into it – it’s faint, but it’s there. “I mean, it’s what we do best, right? Think and overthink a problem to death until we work out how to fix something I’ve broken. What did you say, Remus – a camera, a catchy tune, and a bite-sized dilemma?”

“We have none of those things,” Logan points out.

“Sure we do.” Remus pushes himself upright. “Maybe not a _camera,_ but we have an audience – ” He waves at the seven other assorted fairies and humans. “ – we can work out a tune as we go along, and seeing as the entirety of reality is apparently _bite-sized_ right now...”

“Not the worst idea we’ve ever had. Let’s do it,” says Roman, pushing his hair back from his face.

They arrange themselves in a rough semicircle to one side of the bubble as their unlikely audience looks on in a mixture of bemusement and apathy. Thomas in the middle, of course, and then Janus and Logan and Virgil to his right. Remus and Roman take the other side, with Patton on the far left, rounding things off. There’s no staircase, and no television, and certainly no couch for Thomas to stand in front of, but it’ll have to do.

“Skip the intro,” advises Virgil. “We’re running out of time here, and for once I’m not exaggerating about that.”

“Gotcha,” says Thomas, and takes a deep breath in. “Well, guys, I’ve got a big one for you today. It looks like we’ve accidentally invited a _really_ unwelcome guest over.”

“You can say that again,” Patton says.

“It looks like we’ve accidentally invited a _really_ unwelcome guest – ”

“Skip the running jokes too!” Janus snaps. “Break this down to its bare essentials, come _on._ ”

“They’re an integral part of the process,” Roman says, looking stressed. “Rightio, unwelcome guest; let’s run with the metaphor. If we let her stick around for much longer, she might end up ruining everything, etcetera – what do we do?”

Logan tries to straighten his glasses, but it looks like they’re permanently broken. “When attempting to get rid of unwanted guests, it’s often best to ask yourself if the problem is purely _physical_ or a result of not knowing how to ask them to vacate the premises.”

“Hey, yeah, why can’t we just shove her out the way she came in?” Virgil asks, scrubbing absently at the black wells under his eyes. He snaps his fingers angrily in the Erlking’s direction. “You guys. How did you trap her in the first place? Why can’t you do it again?”

The Erlking blinks slowly, opens his mouth, and then shuts it again. Apparently he didn’t expect audience participation. Then he says, “...It wasn’t so much _trapping_ her as keeping her asleep and keeping her blocked out of our world for hundreds of years on end.”

“Now that she’s awake and _here,_ trying to keep her out of our reality seems a rather futile task,” Logan points out.

“It’s like trying the kiss of life on a skeleton,” Remus contributes. “Sexy, sure, but pretty damn pointless.”

Virgil’s shaking his head. “Okay, right, but _how_ did you do it? Was there a book of spells or something, a ritual, or – I don’t know how magic is supposed to work. You were in the library?”

This time, it’s the Two-Faced King who speaks up. “Half of the information was buried in an ancient text we found, yes. But it was less of a spell and more of a... ah, deal.”

“A deal?” Thomas asks. “You made a deal to keep her out? With who?”

“Who better to stop a god than another god?” the Erlking says, face twisting unpleasantly. “Or a group of lesser entities, existing on the outskirts of reality, as the case ended up being. One human soul, every seven years, and they’d hold her back from the brink of wakefulness.”

“And before you ask – no. We can’t contact them again. The ritual to do so took several weeks, which we don’t have,” adds the Two-Faced King. “And materials. Which we also do not have.”

“Well, tits,” says Remus.

“Okay. Well... how to stop a god, part two, I guess?” Thomas looks around, side-to-side. “Guys-?”

“Traditionally, an enchanted weapon, crafted specifically for the task, would do the trick,” Roman says. “But unless anyone has one of those lying around...”

They do not.

“Eat the god,” suggests Remus. “Worked for Kronos.”

“...I’m pretty sure that it didn’t,” says Thomas. “Work out for Kronos, I mean. Historically speaking.” He shakes his head. “And besides – no.”

“Suicide,” Virgil suggests. “I mean, if it takes a god to stop a god – but, I have no idea how we’d even manage that. Okay, um...”

“Reflect her attacks back onto her,” Logan tries, and then grimaces. “...Somehow...”

“Oh, good,” oozes Janus, insincerity ratcheted all the way up to twenty. “I _was_ wondering what this comically oversized mirror was going to be good for.”

“This is pointless,” is the Two-Faced King’s grim opinion.

Patton straightens up, suddenly. “Maybe we don’t need to kill her.”

Silence.

“I mean, maybe not,” says Thomas. “Killing her would be _hard,_ but... unless we can figure out some way to trap her-?”

“No, not that, it’s... remember what Virgil said?” says Patton. “Nobody bothered to talk to each other about any of this. Tomas didn’t talk to the Erlking or to Bee, Octavian didn’t talk to Tomas, the Two-Faced King didn’t talk to anyone _except_ Tomas, everyone talked to _us_ but nobody gave us the full picture. So maybe that’s what we need to do. We need to _talk._ ”

“Right,” tries Thomas cautiously, uncertainly. “But we’re all talking now, and I think that, maybe, it’s a bit too late for, uh, effective communication to be the thing that saves us?”

“I don’t mean _us,_ kiddo.” Patton points _out_. Out of the dome, out at the eyes and the teeth and the frozen tableau of incomprehensible terror. “Has anyone actually bothered to try asking this Crawling Chaos lady just what the heck she thinks she’s doing?”

There’s a beat of silence, and then Octavian-the-human starts to laugh. It’s humorless, near-emotionless, and it goes on for a long stretch of several seconds before he practically chokes as he says, “You want to go _reason_ with a god? That’s your big solution?”

“Well, I don’t know about _god,_ ” says Patton. “Any god that tries to destroy everything in its path for no reason at all doesn’t sound like much of a god to me!” His eyes are bright and enthusiastic behind his glasses. There may also be a hint of madness there, but Remus can appreciate that. A bit of casual insanity might be exactly what they need here. “She wrote poetry, remember? That whole – chant-y, rant-y, rave-y thing? If she can do _that,_ I’ll bet you all the color left in the world that she can talk to us.”

“We don’t know if that was actually her...” The Two-Faced King trails off, looking at the Erlking – who is slowly, reluctantly nodding. “Don’t tell me you’re agreeing with this.”

“I’m not,” says the Erlking. “But it can’t be denied that Nyarlathotep isn’t just acting with senseless, mindless hunger. There’s some element of reason to what she does.”

“I’m actually with them on this,” Janus says after a second of consideration, and waves a hand in the Two-Faced King’s direction. “I know we’re spitballing wildly here, but. _Patton._ Are you really proposing we – we sit down and have a heart-to-heart with... _that?_ ”

“Yes,” says Patton. “That’s exactly what I’m suggesting.”

“That’s a death sentence,” the Fisher-King says.

“So?” replies Patton, with such bleak, flat directness that Remus very nearly does a double take. “We’re all dead anyway.”

“Loving this energy!” Remus whoops after a second of silence, clapping his hands loudly together. “Parlaying with an elder horror it is! What do we do first?”

“First,” says Logan, biting at his lip in intense thought. He raises a finger, lowers it, and then raises it again. “First, we lower the protective barrier. Secondly, we get her attention. I advise we work out the details of the latter before we commence with the former, since I suspect we won’t have much time to think once this is in motion.”

“How do we even get the attention of something as big as that?” Thomas asks, squinting upwards through the dome. “We must be... gosh, we must be like ants. Less than ants. Less than _bacteria._ ”

“How do you get anything’s attention?” Janus replies. “Tempt her with something irresistible.”

“What do gods find irresistible, though?” Roman taps a finger to his chin. “Apart from entire dimensions...”

“She likes poetry!” Logan exclaims with a sudden upwards jolt of energy. He surges to his feet. “Or at least has some affinity for lyricism. And _music_ – there was that... I suppose it can’t be quite called a song. Either way, there was a certain flare for the dramatic there.”

“ _Octavian!_ ” Patton cries, wheeling around in an equally sudden burst of vigour. He marches over to Octavian of Kadath, still with his battered lute at a crooked angle over his back. “Your song! We need you to sing your song!”

“You’re mad,” says Octavian blankly, dully. “You all are. There’s no hope left, I don’t see what anything I could ever sing would – ”

“You said you were working on a song about you and your, y’know, changeling-brother-person!” Patton grabs him by the forearms and drags him to his feet with a tiny little grunt of determined effort. “You said that it’s going to be the greatest thing you’ve ever sung, but you’ve never got the chance to do it. So _now’s the time._ You’ve gotta sing it!”

“He’s right,” Roman agrees, enthusiasm gradually building. “If a song with _that_ much potential and buildup won’t get her attention, I don’t know what will!”

“I told you, it’s not finished – ” protests Octavian weakly as Patton unwinds the lute from his back and presses it into his hands.

“So make it up,” Virgil says. “ _Jeez_ , man. It’s not like we’re going to care.”

“If you fuck it up, nobody’s ever going to know,” Remus tells him.

Octavian looks around wildly at everyone else. Most of them refuse to meet his eyes, but Tomas does. He looks conflicted for a long second, but then gives one quick nod.

Apparently this is enough. Octavian of Kadath looks back at Patton, flexes his fingers, and strums out a clumsy chord that sounds dull and tinny against the oppressive atmosphere. “I’ll do my best.”

“All right,” says Logan. “We’ll need to hold onto each other, as best as we can – getting separated is the last thing we want at this point.”

They form a clumsy chain, hands wrapping around forearms, fingers gripping tight. Just them, not the mirror-people – Remus _does_ offer a hand out to the Fisher-King, but he doesn’t accept it. Patton’s at the head of the line, and he wraps an arm around Octavian’s waist so that he doesn’t obstruct his playing.

“Guys?” Thomas appeals to the remaining six occupants of the bubble. “Anyone else?”

“If you fail, it won’t matter either way,” says Octavian of Dubh Avon. “I believe I’ll die right here, thank you. I think it will be far more comfortable sitting down.”

“And if we succeed?” Remus challenges.

“That’s not going to happen,” says the human Octavian.

“Tomas?” Thomas asks, turning his gaze onto his double, who’s pressed up close to his lover’s side, neither seeming as if they’re going to let each other go any time soon.

“The only reason you’re agreeing to this is because you have my heart,” Tomas says, staring back at him.

Thomas just nods to this. “Yeah. I know.” He pauses, and then says, “I’m still scared, though. Just not _quite_ as much as I’d usually be. It’s... it’s like the difference between _total_ darkness and mostly-darkness, I think.”

“I’m terrified out of my mind, and it’s your fear I’m feeling”, says Tomas unhappily, and curls an arm tighter around the Erlking’s side. “I’m sure if I were more myself I’d be far more inclined towards reckless heroics that would speed up my imminent death. But as it is... I’d really rather just sit and wait for it all to be over. This was the plan from the start, you know.”

Thomas nods again. “Like I said – I know. I’ve got this.”

“Do you?” Tomas’s smile is a bitter thing, halfway and twisted.

“ _We’ve_ got this,” Thomas corrects. “And unlike you, I don’t think I want to die here.” He looks over at the Two-Faced King. “Take it down,” he says. “I don’t want to ask you three times, because... because, that must suck for you. But I will if I have to.”

The Two-Faced King grimaces, and says, “The two of you are _entirely_ too similar for my liking.”

He takes in a deep, deep breath, and brings his hands up.

The bubble surrounding them shatters, and the last feeble remains of color are sucked out of them, evaporating into the maelstrom as if it were never there. The noise and sickening motion and the _eyes_ have started up again, and is it just Remus imagining things or is the sound of the world collapsing around them so much louder that before? And is it just him, or are Nyarlathotep’s teeth growing bigger and bigger?

“Go!” Patton shouts, grabbing Octavian’s arm. He’s gazing at the sky in abject horror, transfixed at the imminent arrival of complete annihilation. His pupils are so dilated they’re barely there. “Octavian-? Octavian, bud, come on, snap out of it – _play!_ ”

Octavian snaps out of it. He acquires a look of furious determination. His fingers spill across the strings of his lute, so fast that they’re barely visible anymore. It’s only very slightly audible over the sound of everything at once, but that doesn’t matter, because it’s then that he begins to sing.

The melody is heartwrenchingly lovely, the words are pretty, and it all flows like liquid sorrow. It’s a story about reconnection, about missing someone who you barely even know, about circumstances that spiralled out of your control even before you were born. About a last desperate hope for reconnection, here, at the end of all things.

Remus kind of hopes the other Octavian is paying attention, because this seems like the sort of thing that he really needs to hear. Even if there _are_ bigger things to be worrying about.

Octavian’s song collides and crunches with the warped music already in the air at first. But then it starts to mesh, and then a strange sort of harmony is achieved. The loud cacophony is still there, but Octavian’s music exists in synthesis with it. Underlining, intermingling, boosting. Like the original noise has listened real hard, tilted its head to one side, and said, _you know what, let’s give this amateur a chance._ It’s stunning and overwhelming.

And every eye in the sky and on the ground and all around them blinks. Just once, but all at once. Perfect synchronicity.

The song swells, triumphant and hopeful.

“I think we’ve got her attention,” Roman begins to exclaim, but the end of it is cut off as he lets out a sudden, gurgling scream, and then Remus is no longer holding onto his arm, and then there is no more music.

Before he can even begin to react to this – or the other sudden screams and gasps and noises he doesn’t want to put description to that are suddenly echoing all around him – two things that are far too large to reasonably be called fingers reach down out of the sky, pick Remus up ever-so-delicately, flip him end over end and dissect him bit by bit, then put him back together again, and then squeeze him until he pops. And then:

“All right,” she says. “Say your piece.”


	11. thomas (ii)

“What,” says Thomas. “What the _fuck._ ”

They’re in the living room, and they’re in their normal positions. Everyone’s back in their regular outfits – Thomas even has that Steven Universe shirt on that he always wears when he wants everyone to be sure that it’s him. Virgil on the stairs, Patton in front of the blinds, Janus holding onto Logan for support in the hallway. In fact, the only two things that are really _off_ about this – apart from the fact that all of his Sides have never been all in the living room together like this at once and this is probably the weirdest possible moment to being doing that for the very first time – is that that there’s a tall, unfamiliar figure lounging on the couch just behind Thomas.

She’s holding a fan covered in elaborate black-and-white patterns that shift mind-bendingly if he looks at them for too long, delicately wafting it back and forth. It obscures her face in a casual enough way that you might assume that she’s not doing it on purpose, except also it’s pretty clear that she absolutely is doing it on purpose. Her clothes are nice, but nondescript. Her hair is shining and dark and drifting around lightly in the breeze, which is weird, because they’re inside. At least, Thomas thinks they’re inside.

“I mean, you said you wanted to talk,” she says. “That was the gist she got from the whole ‘tragic heartfelt melody’ stunt you pulled back there, so – go right ahead, talk. Can’t guarantee she’ll actually agree or even pay attention, but you’ve got her here, so you might as well give it a go.”

Thomas... blinks. Very slowly. “Uh, okay. I’m going to need a second.”

“Time is an illusion,” she replies. “And also a tasty snack. Take as much as you want.”

Thomas does. He takes stock of himself. He, personally, is feeling weirdly fine. His heart is racing a bit from the unexpectedness of the change, but also it isn’t technically _his_ heart. It still sits oddly in his chest, like it’s not meant to be there and both of them know it, but there’s no denying that it’s making him feel a lot calmer about this situation than it would otherwise. That’s probably a good thing. He’s definitely not the sort of person who’s equipped for negotiating with an eternal being, or... whatever this is meant to be. So it’s probably fitting that he’s basically half-someone else right now.

And as for the others – they all look varying shades of shell-shocked. Logan is half-hugging himself, patting at his arms as if to make sure they’re still there. Virgil is muttering something under his breath, looking wildly around and holding onto the rungs of the staircase like they’re the only thing keeping him upright. Roman, Janus and Patton just look flat-out baffled, and Remus is bouncing in place, apparently psyched out of his mind for whatever’s about to happen next.

He can’t feel them – can’t feel the puzzlement or the panic or the excitement the way he normally would – as natural emotions that spring into being like any other feeling. He’s fractured, not himself; incomplete. But they’re all here. And they’re all fine. And they’re together, so they can take whatever happens next as it comes.

He hopes.

“Okay, let’s do this.” Thomas takes a very deep breath. “Um, hello. Welcome to my living room, I guess?”

Her fan shifts ever so slightly, and Thomas thinks he almost sees a snatch of her lips, turned upwards and inside-out in something that could maybe be called a smile. But then it’s (thankfully) obscured. “A pleasure to be here, Thomas.”

“Sorry, wait, _what,_ ” Roman interjects, abruptly snapping out of his confused fugue to glare at the fan-carrying woman. “Who in the name of popular Disney animator Glen Keane are you meant to be?”

“Don’t be rude!” Patton exclaims reflexively. “This is obviously Ny – uhm.” He fumbles for a second, and looks apologetically over at their visitor. “Nyarl – Gnarly-something. Okay, you know what, I am _so_ sorry, I’ve only heard your name three times today and I was panicking for most of that time.”

“It’s pronounced Nyarlathotep,” says the woman with the fan, with a hint of amusement in her voice. “But no. I am not she.”

Thomas shuffles back closer to the stairs so he can see her properly. “Uh, then-?”

A little side-to-side tilt of the fan. “Identity has no meaning in this place, and I have no name or role that you’d understand. But if you _really_ want to put labels on who I am and what I’m doing here, I guess you could say that I’m a... ah, a sort of _offshoot_ of her. One of a thousand faces that forms part of an indescribable-incomprehensible identity, a single facet of an overwhelming whole, a fraction of an entirety that’s small enough for all of you to comprehend. But then again, I’m sure you’d all understand – quite a lot better than most beings of your level of complexity.”

“I don’t...” Thomas starts, but looks over at a little familiar gasp of comprehension from his left.

“Oh,” says Logan, “ _oh._ You’re... like us.”

“Well, not exactly,” replies the woman with the fan. “I am so much more unimaginably complex than any of you, or even _Thomas,_ could ever hope to be. But it’s close enough of a comparison to work. Yes, I’m like you.”

“Good to know,” says Virgil shortly. His fingers are still wrapped tightly around the staircase rails, knuckles bone-white. “But just to be clear, when we’re talking to you, we _are_ also talking to the incomprehensible being with a billion eyes that’s about to chow down on everything in existence?”

She nods. “That would be her, yes.”

“Cool. Have you maybe considered, uh, _not doing that?_ ”

Her fingers curl around the edge of the fan, curving it around her face elegantly as she giggles heartily. It quickly transitions into full-on roars of uncontrollable laughter. She rolls sideways on the couch, facing the cushions as she convulses in cackles that are starting to sound more and more like twisted, rasping choking, as everyone stares at her in shared bemusement.

“Oh, _y’bthnk_ , that’s – ” She crows something guttural and throaty, and then sits up, tucking two extraordinarily long legs beneath her. “My apologies, how undignified of me. You don’t have the perspective, I suppose. None of you do. Can’t be helped. No, the thought hadn’t crossed her mind. Any of them. Certainly not mine. You want your reality to remain intact and stable?”

“That would be... nice?” hedges Patton nervously.

“Then you’ll have to do a bit better than simply _asking politely,_ ” she replies. “Because that’s going to get you nowhere.”

“All right, but.” Logan frowns. “We, understandably, have quite a few objections to the fact that you seem to be intent on devouring all of reality in a single bite as soon as this meeting ends. And I do believe that most other creatures existing in the multiverse feel the same way.”

“Mhm,” says the woman with the fan. “That was the impression I’ve been getting, yes. And that does seem fair and reasonable when it’s all considered from your rather limited perspective.”

“And what is your perspective?” Logan demands, clearly frustrated – a frustration that’s heartily mirrored on everyone else’s faces. “If we are so very insignificant and so inconsequential to you and your... you, then why is a simple request to not touch us so challenging? It’s not as if consuming us would give you any real sustenance. This is... we are quite literally asking for the bare minimum here. Why are you doing this?”

“Apart from the fact that she has no wish or desire to do anything you ask for?” The woman with the fan gives the impression of blinking at them, despite visibly doing no such thing. “Well, let me put it like this. The path away from the place that she’s been sleeping is, let’s say, extremely narrow. Of course it’s far more complicated than that, existing on many, many higher dimensions, but for the sake of simplicity... narrow path. Narrow enough that she has to just about place one foot in front of the other to traverse it, squeezing through sideways. With me so far?”

A chorus of reluctant nods.

“You and everything you know, as well as a great deal of things you don’t; you’re a cobblestone on that path. A single unremarkable cobblestone, without a thing to distinguish you from any other. What you’re asking is for her to look out for that cobblestone in particular, and to avoid stepping on it at all costs. Despite the fact that she couldn’t care less about a singular cobblestone, despite the fact that avoiding it on this narrow, narrow path – or even seeing it is – nearly impossible, despite the fact that it doesn’t matter to anyone at all if she does happen to step on it.” She spreads her hands. “Do you understand now? A matter of _polite asking_ just isn’t enough. You’ll need to be extremely convincing to change the course of something that essentially amounts to _pure entropy_ in motion.”

“Well... if asking politely isn’t going to work... is there any _other_ way we can convince you?” Roman asks. “One Side to another.”

“Probably not. But I think it might be fun if you gave it a go,” the woman with the fan offers. “As I said, time is more or less infinite and everlasting in this place. So really, you have until I get bored with listening to you. You’re doing fine so far, incidentally. Keep it up.”

There’s a moment where nobody seems to breathe at all. Except Thomas, who is suddenly acutely aware of his own breathing. “You... want us to try to convince you? Not to destroy everything?”

“I assumed that was what you were here for in the first place,” she says. “And I’m here, extending an offer to listen, at the very least. So, the floor is all yours.”

Another moment of silence.

“Well, I’m game,” says Remus, startling Thomas, because he hadn’t thought Remus was paying attention. He hadn’t even thought that Remus _cared_ , beyond the entertainment value of all of this. But then again, he can’t imagine that there’s a part of him that _wouldn’t_ care about all of reality being destroyed.

“We have nothing left to lose,” is Logan’s opinion.

“We can be extremely convincing when we want to be,” Janus adds. Very slowly, he lifts his head and straightens his back. Now he’s standing at his full height and there’s a degree of determined confidence there that is honestly inspiring.

“One final appeal? Let’s do this,” Roman says, clasping his hands together briskly. And almost instantly, the very distinct sound of an instrumental music track springing up around them from absolutely nowhere begins to occur in their immediate vicinity. It’s upbeat and catchy, with a heavily swung beat and a bassline that, quite frankly, slaps harder than anything Thomas has heard in months.

“You have _got_ to be kidding me,” groans Logan, over the sound of rising strings. “There is no way we’re doing a musical number. Not here. Not now. Not like this – ”

But there’s something oddly _right_ about the idea of this being set to music, to Thomas’s mind. As if there’s no other way that this could have conceivably gone. And, after all, they’ve already proven that this being likes music. If there’s anything that she’s going to want to listen to, it’s going to be this.

Without even so much as pausing to think about it, he steps forward to take up the centre of the room, and begins to sing:

“ _Well, I must say; it’s quite a day  
To bargain for existence  
We’ll need great skill - so tell me, will  
We be met with resistance?_”

The woman adjusts her fan, leaning forward, and replies in kind:

_“No resistance will occur  
These circumstances won’t recur  
This is as strange for me as it’s for you.  
Godly debate‘s unprecedented  
Now this world is represented  
By you. There’s no rules - what will you do?”_

She has a surprisingly clear, sweet voice, all things considered. Alto, if Thomas had to guess, with strange silvery overtones that don’t really fit any human vocal categorizations. He rests a hand lightly on his chest, trying to feel a difference there – then presses on:

“ _I’m feeling stressed, not at my best  
My heart’s not where it should be  
My Sides, therefore, will take the floor –  
They’ll take this task on for me._”

The fan-carrying woman waves a hand in acknowledgement.

“ _A multitude’s as good as one  
It doesn’t matter where it’s from  
She’s listening and hearing what you say  
You may just have an hour or minute  
Fit your case and pleas within it  
Now the floor is yours - persuade away_.”

A touch to Thomas’s shoulder; and even as he looks to see who it is, he’s gently nudged out of the way by a determined looking Janus.

“ _You seem to find us entertaining; maybe even like us  
We certainly could find suggestions (should the notion strike us)  
There’s reasons in the millions why your bloodlust should waver  
But why waste time with earnest rhymes when we could ask a favour?  
Destroying all the multiverse seems just a bit excessive  
Considering the day we’ve had, it’s almost retrogressive  
We’re trustworthy as you can get, you’re hearing what we say  
So if you really like our style you’d leave and go away._”

Thomas realizes, somewhat wildly, that this is the first time he’s actually heard Janus sing. It couldn’t have been under stranger circumstances – but, all the same, he finds himself appreciating the way his voice sounds in Janus’s mouth. There’s a flair and a rich dark sort of drama to it.

Almost immediately, the fan-carrying woman is replying, matching Janus’s tone and energy almost exactly:

“ _I like you, but we’re not the same  
Don’t try to play her at this game  
You’re transient and soon you all will die  
Your corpses would shrivel and shrink more  
If she were to merely blink - you’re  
Molecules, barely worth a goodbye.”_

\- which seems to be the cue for Janus to step back and for someone else to take up the stand. There’s a brief, panicked moment where it seems as if nobody’s going to do it, then Patton straightens his hoodie around his shoulders and steps up to deliver his own appeal:

“ _You going out and snacking really seems a bit_ off _to me  
You’re treating all of real life just like a second cookie  
Why don’t you care about the lives here you kill as you go by?  
I’m sure you have a heart - why not give empathy a try?_”

“ _Empathy might be worth a try  
But really, I just wonder why  
You think she cares when her form is so vast?  
Your lives and worths are microscopic -  
Could care less for talks anthropic -  
Nothing matters, nothing’s meant to last._”

\- and as Patton falls back, that means it’s Virgil’s cue to push forward with a glare and a growl and not even the slightest hint of stage fright.

“ _Look - if your eyes were harmed or blinded, even you would suffer  
Falling into a black hole would probably feel rougher  
Even gods can feel pain - not a threat, just a reminder  
That getting hurt would really suck, so how ‘bout something kinder?  
Yeah, here’s a thought - just shove right off? Step over us and get lost  
Considering alternatives, it’s really not a big cost!  
Starting right at zero bucks, you’ll spare our world today, and,  
If cosmic chaos happens it might as well go as planned.”_

“ _It’s difficult enough to take a step  
Over this world without  
Preparatory measures, mindfulness galore  
But since she couldn’t even care less,  
What’s the point not being careless?  
Nothing hurts her - and it’s such a _chore _._ ”

As Roman rolls up his sleeves and takes Virgil’s place, Thomas notices that the disembodied instrumentals are speeding up – almost imperceptibly at first, but it’s definitely happening. It seems to be accelerating them in direct parallel to the desperation that he (and, presumably, all of them) are feeling. Which is _fun._

And Roman’s take –

“ _You’re vaster than a Titan’s back pain, and we can’t decipher  
Your rhyme or reasons - so I fear, it’s time to pay the piper  
Our lives and livelihoods are lost _unless _we can uncover  
That one thing in the world you crave, far more than any other  
Old Odin traded all for knowledge, Dizang helped the dead out,  
The Raven and Coyote stole for man - Zeus got his bed out  
Anansi shared his stories - red-eyed Mars, he shaped bloody wars  
And every one had goals and wants - so what, my friend, are yours?_”

“ _To comprehend her goals is wild and  
Foolish, even from inside her -  
Human brains and logic just won’t do.  
If you could even half-conceive a  
Reason that could make her leave, you’d  
Never have the means to follow through._”

Remus elbows Roman out of the way, clearing his throat. Around him, the music seems to swell and speed up even more, as if they need a diegetic soundtrack to let them know just how bad things are getting.

“ _‘Kay - Roman’s thing was pretty neat, but let’s pick something smaller  
So if your centre’s feeling munchy, be a pal and stall her  
Maybe we can’t appease you fully, but we might as well _try _.  
What’s better than this world - what would make you pass us all by?”_

“ _I understand you’re thinking smaller  
But somehow this order’s taller -  
God-sized favors aren’t things that you loan.  
Anything that you could give her  
Would be too hard to deliver  
All you have, she could get on her own_. _”_

Logan is the only one who hasn’t joined in so far. Thomas is genuinely apprehensive that he won’t, for a moment; that he’s going to have to be the one to step in and provide a solution that he can’t think of – but he shouldn’t have worried. Logan’s already adjusting his glasses and stepping up to take centre-stage in the middle of the room, and when he delivers his verse, it’s with a half-spoken half-sung cadence that bubbles like a running stream:

“ _The fact is that the multiverse’s a non-renewing resource  
You’ve made clear that you’re not here for more than a light pre-main course  
But if we could provide you with something that gives provision  
Much more nutrition from one source, more than you could envision  
It follows only logically that you’d take this replacement  
And hopefully this clarity will hasten your effacement  
What I have here presented is only a brief overview  
So if we’re all quite finished singing - may I talk this through?_”

“ _I –_ ”

There’s a long, weighted silence, and the music abruptly stops, fading and trailing off into nothing.

“Interesting,” says the fan-carrying woman. She hums and clicks to herself. “ _Very_ interesting.”

“May I continue?” Logan asks. “Preferably this time without instrumental accompaniment. Coming up for a passable internal rhyme for _effacement_ on the spot is more difficult than it appears.”

“Go on,” she invites.

Logan nods, pleased. “I will be honest. There isn’t all that much we can offer you. But it seems to me that there is at least _one_ thing that you find sustaining or at least mildly entertaining enough to stop your – ah, ‘reign of terror’ is the term, I believe? – for.” He glances around at everyone else, appealing. “What will last as long as the multiverse does, and hopefully provide enough sustenance that it’s worth it to leave us alone?”

“A story,” Roman exclaims immediately, raising a finger in excitement.

“And not just any story,” continues Logan. “One that will be repeated and passed on over the course of generations and generations in countless different forms. People die, cultures change, lands shift, but stories are eternal.”

Virgil crosses his arms, his lips drawing into a thin line. “This seems like a bit of a long shot. What sort of story can we start circling around that’s going to last _forever?_ ”

“I rather think the story of how we stopped a god from devouring the entirety of reality will be a suitably epic tale for the ages,” Logan says, with a smug little adjustment of his glasses. “Don’t you?”

“And when there’s nobody left to tell stories, you can come back and eat as much of this dimension as you want,” Roman tells the fan-carrying woman. “Because when stories are gone, I don’t think it’ll be worth living in.”

“ _Or maybe let’s not do that, either!_ ” Virgil blurts. “Because maybe we don’t want the multiverse to get eaten, _ever?_ ”

The fan-carrying woman is laughing again. “I think by that point she’ll be far enough away that you won’t need to worry. If she agrees, that is.”

“Well, uh – _does_ she agree?” Thomas asks, fingers knitting together anxiously behind his back. “Can you check?”

“Just a tick,” says the woman, and with a flourish of her fan, she’s gone – abruptly, without any noise or light or fanfare.

Thomas doesn’t have time to think about this properly or talk with the others, because about at the moment that he processes it, there’s something else sitting in her place. It’s skinless and squat, with what seems to be bright, overwhelming moonlight shining out from where its face should be.

 _She agrees,_ it says, without mouth or tongue, without noise and without sound.

“Oh!” Patton hesitates, looking a bit sick. “You – you must be... another one of her Sides. Um – ”

 _She agrees,_ it repeats, oozing faintly. _But there is one condition – this story of yours must end up being a tragedy._

Glances are exchanged. Long, meaningful glances. It’s probably because none of them want to look at this new visitor of theirs for very long at all.

“That... _does_ make sense,” Remus points out after a moment. “Tragedies last for longer, you know.”

Roman’s lips twist downwards. “I don’t _like_ tragedies,” he mutters. “They just always seem so _bleak –_ what’s the point in reading a story if it’s just going to spiral down into – into pointless, pathetic, pitying pathos?”

“The thing is,” says Janus slowly, and then stops, and then says, “the thing is, it’s somewhat of a paradox, isn’t it?”

Thomas nods as he realizes what Janus already has. “If you agree to this, we win, and that means there’s a happy ending. The only way that this entire thing’s going to end up being a tragedy is...”

He trails off.

“If you kill us all,” concludes Virgil.

“Or,” adds Remus, “ _or._ If someone plot-important dies.”

 _A sacrifice is required,_ it says. It swivels, the shining light of its face casting bright shadows over each of them in turn. It seems to dismiss all of them, one by one, and then it looks at Thomas. The brightness sharpens.

It doesn’t say anything, as such, but Thomas thinks, _oh no,_ because he’s just realized he’s the only real one here, and when it comes to sacrifices, real people tend to be preferable over the other, more imaginary sort of people.

Virgil lets out a sound that’s quite frankly _deranged_ , and staggers to his feet with an angry, stilted lurch. He shoves past Thomas, pushing him back in the direction of the stairs. “Get _away_ from him!”

The skinless, squirming thing turns slowly, and its luminous nonexistent face somehow manages to reflect complete bewilderment in the split-second before Virgil’s fist connects solidly with it, and the whole creature just straight-up _explodes –_ shattering like delicately-spun glass that showers around them, coating the couch in a fine mist.

Thomas lets out a yell that’s half-terrified-shock and half something that might actually be startled enthusiasm. He’s not alone. Literally everyone else has let out some form of screech or scream, and most of them are now all staring with varying amounts of shock and confusion.

“ _Oh god what have I done,_ ” Virgil roars, now in full nightmare-meltdown-voice mode. He clutches at the offending fist. “ _I fucked up. I fucked up! I killed one of that thing’s Sides and now the entire multiverse is gonna collapse because of me –_ ”

“As a matter of fact, that was actually really quite entertaining,” remarks a new voice. There is a new creature in the room – about as tall as the fan-carrying woman, but with an indistinct green-tinged form that clicks and whirs like she’s made up of a million invisible gears. “There are a very small number of us who appreciate that one’s presence. It will reform, but I suspect it may take a while. No, your actions here have gained you the – ah, what’s the phrase? Well, you have _my_ ‘seal of approval’, at the very least.”

Virgil’s gaze flits over the new arrival as he pants with exertion and quite a bit of adrenaline that Thomas has never been more glad that he’s not feeling. He surveys the clockwork being wildly, and seems to come to the abrupt conclusion that she’s less of a danger than the flesh-thing had been, and stumbles back to Thomas’s side. His wariness, however, does not let up for an instant. “Approval. Great. Whatever. You’re not going to kill Thomas, though. I won’t let you.”

If the clockwork being had a face that wasn’t gears, she would maybe be smiling. “You think you could stop us?” She doesn’t wait for an answer. “It’s just as well that we have a more apt sacrifice in mind.”

They don’t have time to ask what she’s talking about because almost instantly, Tomas Linus Alexander is there, whirling around with an expression of terrified confusion on his face. His hand leaps to the sword at his side, but it’s an inexperienced, uncoordinated motion. Of course it is. Thomas is the one with the swordsman’s heart right now. “What in the world-?”

“Not _in_ the world,” Remus corrects. “Actually, I’m pretty sure we’re all out of it right now! Out of the world or out of our minds, or out of something else entirely – feel free to take your pick!”

“You missed the musical number,” says Roman. “Welcome to the aftermath.”

“I think I missed a lot more than just a _musical number,_ ” Tomas says. He gestures at the room, the television, the light fixtures, and the clockwork being, in no particular order. “What is this? Where am I? Who is-?”

They explain the situation to Tomas as best as they can. The clockwork being ticks and whistles and buzzes softly as she stands in the centre of the room all the while, not saying a word and not moving a muscle – or whatever the clockwork equivalent of _muscles_ are. She just watches. Waiting.

“To be clear,” says Tomas, when they’re done with a chaotic little speed-recap. “I need to die in order for all of reality to continue existing?”

“Well...” hedges Patton, looking extremely guilty.

“Yes,” says Janus, without the slightest hint of an apology.

“Or, at the very least, that’s what we’ve been led to believe,” Logan chimes in.

Tomas nods, and, after looking around for a moment, sinks down onto the couch.

It’s a strange sight, having a man in armour and a worn-looking cloak sitting in the middle of Thomas’s living room, deep in thought as he stares up at the NBC Elementary posters hanging opposite him, just in front of the staircase. It’s somehow a lot more jarring than the clockwork being or the flesh-thing or the fan-woman, maybe because they all had seemed to warp reality in order to make them fit seamlessly into the setting. And it’s definitely more jarring than having Roman or Remus there. Probably because the clothes he’s wearing aren’t a costume and they’re a lot more historically accurate in every way.

“I always intended to die at the conclusion of all of this,” he says eventually. “And I don’t see how this death is any more or less pointless than the one I originally intended to suffer.”

“So you agree to our terms?” the clockwork being asks.

“Yes. I agree,” Tomas replies, raising his chin to meet her gaze.

“Then so be it,” says the clockwork being, and raises a hand. “We will let your death be of your choosing, but make it quick. We don’t have all that long left, and we grow impatient.”

*

And in a flash, they’re standing back where they were. Holding onto each other in a loose line in an unimaginable hellscape. Their clothes are back to the way that they had been – all ragged and torn, a combination of Thomas’s wardrobe and outfits they’d stolen from the closet full of fairy clothes. Octavian is looking around, expression dazed and startled. Some distance away, the rest of the mirror-counterparts are also exchanging baffled glances.

“Hang on.” Patton blinks, stumbling a bit. “That actually _worked?_ ”

Around them, everything is coming back to life. The grey retreats, washing out like a wave, and color comes creeping in; blooming across their skin and the ground and the sky in sweet bursts of radiance that flow and feel like liquid sunlight. The shadowed creatures that had been prowling and screaming and writhing unendingly all unravel and un-warp themselves, revealing humans and animals alike, all quite unconscious but ultimately none the worse for wear.

The river takes form, and so does the forest. And the impossibly large eyes on the ground and in the sky and all around them blink shut, sealing over until there’s just one remaining, regarding them with searing intensity.

Nyarlathotep’s warped, all-encompassing song continues. But there’s something sweeter to it now, and a definite sort of rhythm – like it’s taken Octavian’s music into account, taken notes from it, and modified it accordingly. It almost feels like something that you might be able to dance to.

Actually -

Tomas is rising to his feet, and offering a hand to the Erlking. Before Thomas can really understand how or why, he sees that they’re dancing. Swaying back and forth, talking softly to each other, exchanging sad smiles.

And then everyone starts pairing off – human and fairy and Side alike, reaching out for one another’s hands, pulling each other to their feet, beginning to move to the rhythm of it all. It’s not exactly like a trance, it’s just a feeling of _rightness._ Like it’s the thing that they’re meant to be doing. Like it’s the only thing that they could ever be doing now that everything’s arrived at this point. Roman and the Two-Faced King, Logan and Patton, Bee and Octavian-the-fairy. And then they’re _all_ dancing. Thomas looks around, and sees that he and Virgil are the last – the only ones not moving in a small vortex of people in beautiful, elegant motion.

“Well,” he says. “Looks like all the cool kids are doing it, so...”

“I have no idea what’s going on,” replies Virgil, but takes Thomas’s hand anyway, and then they’re face-to-face.

Thomas wraps his arm around Virgil’s back, Virgil clasps his hand tight. On his face, Thomas can see every faint freckle he didn’t even know he had, every smudge of excess eyeshadow Virgil hadn’t quite managed to scrub off. He knows he’s just as dishevelled, just as exhausted. They’re not quite synched up again, not yet, but he can feel a distant thrum of – yes, _anxiety –_ returning to him, as though through a long, long tunnel. He thrills and delights in it.

Virgil hates dancing, Thomas knows this intimately. Virgil is the literal _reason_ Thomas doesn’t dance. But he doesn’t voice even the slightest word of complaint as they twirl absently, pointlessly; swaying in time to a song too ancient to be named or described.

“I’m sorry,” Virgil tells him.

Thomas frowns, baffled. “You’re apologizing?”

“Well, uh, I failed you. Like, half a million times.”

“...Name one.”

“I could go on for hours. Literal hours. I can’t stress this enough, I have an entire list; I’ve been building it up in my head all this time. Letting go of you in the forest, that first time. Letting you get anywhere _near_ the Erlking, not going after you the moment I saw you in the river, not doing enough to – ” He makes an aborted little motion with his free hand. “Not doing enough.”

“Virge...” Thomas laughs, and curls his hand around Virgil’s back tighter, closer. “Virgil, we just saved the _multiverse_ , and you think you messed up by not being fast enough to stop me when I was possessed by a... uh, fairy curse thing? Priorities, man.”

Virgil ducks his head angrily, glaring away at some point past Thomas’s head. “Yeah, well. Literal embodiment of anxiety here, hi. You nearly died today. You nearly died in a _continuous_ stream of ‘nearly dying’. If anything ever counted as me not doing my job...”

“Well, you punched a god for me,” points out Thomas. “So even if I did blame you for any of that other stuff – which, quick point of order, I absolutely do _not –_ I’d say that makes up for, um, literally anything you’ve ever done. Ever.”

“I _did,_ didn’t I?” breathes Virgil, sounding a bit stunned at himself.

“ _Absolutely_ you did. Best. Anxiety. Ever.” Thomas leans forwards, grinning, and kisses Virgil’s forehead. “Don’t you forget it and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.”

Virgil grins tentatively back. It’s a small little thing, but it’s radiant.

“Love you,” says Thomas.

Virgil rolls his eyes. “Ugh,” he huffs, but squeezes Thomas’s hand just that little bit tighter the moment before something in the music changes, and somebody else catches at his hand, and he’s swept away – a new partner coming to take his place in front of Thomas.

Patton grabs his hands, both his hands, and now they’re moving on the offbeats, bright and enthusiastic. “We’re alive!” he exclaims, glasses crooked and eyes bright.

“We are!” Thomas beams. The faint, distant echo of his own joy thrums in his own chest, getting closer. “You’re a genius, Pat _–_ look at this! You did all this! _It was your idea! You saved everything!_ ”

“Aw, gosh, don’t give me all the credit, kiddo; we all chipped in,” Patton says. “And since it was all of us together, technically it was your idea! _You_ saved the world! Always knew you would, one day!”

“Roman’s gonna be so happy,” Thomas hums, and then he feels his own happiness dim just a shade or two, and bittersweet melancholy settles over him like a shroud. “But... I mean, it’s not all sunshine and rainbows. Tomas is still going to...” He trails off.

Neither of them speak for a moment.

“I... well. He _did_ say he was okay with it.”

“I know. And I think he actually wanted to die, all along, so – maybe he’s getting what he wanted?”

Patton’s face shines with indecision. “But... is that the right thing to do, even so?”

Thomas swings in closer to Patton, holding his hands tighter. “Jeez, I really don’t know. But I think it’s kind of the only thing to do. And it means that literally everyone else in existence can keep on living, so I think we’ve just got to go with it.”

“I don’t want him to die,” Patton mutters after a second. “I know he hurt us, but I think he’s a really nice person. A _good_ person. He was just trying to help everyone, and... He went about it in the wrong way, he and the Erlking. But that doesn’t make them bad people. Just misguided people.”

“And you know a thing or two about that,” Thomas says.

“Mhm,” agrees Patton, the hum echoing through both their bodies. It’s warm and soft and more than a little sad.

“Well, I think it’s kind of out of our hands at this point. But I’m glad you care,” Thomas says, leaning into the feeling. “I don’t know what I’d do if you didn’t.”

Another squeeze of the hands, and Patton is leaving, with Remus swinging into his place somewhat wildly – knocking Thomas off-balance for a second or two. He pinwheels wildly, trying not to fall over, but then Remus grabs him by the waist, dipping him low, and Thomas grabs his hand and now they’ve found a rhythm and they’re moving to the beat of it. It’s loose and free and Remus is practically flinging him back and forth with his enthusiasm. The amount of energy is astounding.

“Tom Scholng!” Remus cries, and lets out an exultant, grating screech of laughter. “ _Ha!_ Told you we’d make it! Still not dead!”

“Still not dead!” Thomas exclaims right back at him, and it’s so strange for them to be grinning at each other so openly and freely but it also feels so _right_. “Looks like you’re going to be bugging me for a while longer. Unless you still want to stay here...?”

Another screech of laughter. “Oh, Tommy-Tommy-tommygun, y’ain’t getting away from me that easily!” Remus whips them around, lightning-fast, so fast that it makes Thomas’s head spin. “Nah, I’m sticking around. Gotta claim those bragging rights for saving your sweet ass so many times today, you know? I’m pretty sure I saved you more than Roman, and _hoo boy_ is he going to hate that. I wouldn't miss that for every planet in the multiverse!”

He spins them again, the other way, and then leans in. He’s probably aiming for the lips, knowing him, and also probably aiming to be as disgusting as possible. Instead, he ends up missing and smacking Thomas cleanly on the cheek. It’s oddly sweet, and also weirdly endearing, especially when he curses extensively, and says, “Wait, no, lemme – ”

But before he can, he’s tugged off by the next person in line and Janus swirls in neatly, bringing the dance back down to a much more sedate pace. He reaches up with one gloved hand to push his hat back, clasping both of Thomas’s tightly with the other, and then he brings his other one to rest on top. They step together in unplanned synchronicity, precise and directed even though Thomas is pretty sure neither of them know how they’re doing it.

“We can’t tell anyone about this, you know,” Janus tells him.

The fabric of Janus’s gloves is soft and velvety. He could hold onto it forever. “Now, why am I not surprised that you’re the one reminding me of this?”

“I’m only saying. Do you honestly think anyone’s going to even believe us if we try?”

“Joan might,” Thomas suggests. “I mean, we’re going to have to tell them _something_ when we get back.” Another few steps. “Thanks. I mean – _really_ thanks. I know I didn’t make it easy for you this time, but you had my back pretty much every step of the way and... I appreciate that.”

Janus lets go of Thomas with one hand, reaching into his pocket. He fumbles around haltingly for a long moment, and then draws out a single crumpled, faded daisy. Reaching out, he tucks it behind Thomas’s ear. “You’re an idiot,” he says lovingly. “Oh, _look_ at you. Gave your heart to a liar because you thought it would save him; tried to give yourself up for the cosmos. It’s a wonder we survived this at all.”

Thomas isn’t sure whether to laugh or apologize.

“Can I plead insanity? I _definitely_ wasn’t in my right mind for most of this whole thing. Still not sure if I am now, honestly.”

“Don’t give me that, you were _completely_ cogent when you made the choice to swap your heart out. And besides.” A faint sigh. A little upwards quirk of the mouth, a sparkle of mischief in the eyes. “I’m not sure if any legal court in existence has a precedent for ‘self-inflicted fairy heart curse’. Do you have any idea how that trial would end up going down?”

“‘Your honour, my client got emotionally blackmailed by those gosh-darn fairies _again_ ,’” Thomas quips.

“Lock him up and throw away the key!” Janus declares with a laugh, and Thomas knows that they’re going to be all right. “Absolute moron; gave away his full name in the first five minutes! Doesn’t even know how to negotiate proper fae contracts. _Pathetic_.”

And then Janus is being swept away and the next in line is Logan, who almost immediately takes them into a moderate-paced waltz. It’s not very strict at all in form or style, and the one-two-three beat they’re moving to is loose and relaxed.

Logan’s glasses are back to normal and no longer twisted and broken, although they rest ever-so-slightly askew on the bridge of his nose. He isn’t moving to fix them, though.

“So, how’re you holding up?” Thomas asks.

“I do believe I am rather overwhelmed,” Logan tells him, entirely too mildly. “Nearly every intrinsic truth I believed to be unshakably correct about the world has been shattered irretrievably over the course of the last few days, and, what’s more, it turns out that _Roman and Remus,_ of all people, had been far more correct than I about... quite a lot of things.” He shakes his head. “I mean, what do I even _do_ with that?”

“Ouch,” says Thomas, wincing. “Well, look at it this way – at least you know the truth now, right?”

“I _do._ But it’s a figurative Cassandra curse, because I am _also_ stunningly aware that nobody will ever believe us about any of this.”

“Janus did say something about that, yeah.” Thomas raises his hand from Logan’s back, who shifts to accommodate him, and now Thomas is leading the dance. “But, I think we can maybe worry about that later.”

“Of course,” says Logan, sighing. “It’s not over yet.”

“I need to get you guys back in place, for one thing. It’s just not the same in my head without you.”

“And Tomas Alexander needs to go.” Logan, surprisingly, looks just as unhappy as Patton had been about this. “I suppose it was too much to hope for that we end up with a _completely_ perfect resolution...”

“It never really does work out that way, huh,” Thomas agrees, and they waltz for another few steps. “Logan... thank you. You did the best you could’ve possibly done – you did _my_ best, even when I wasn’t there to do it for myself. You,” he says, and says it very slowly so Logan can process every word individually, “are the absolute _coolest._ ”

“I _am_ the coolest,” agrees Logan, looking extremely pleased, and then abruptly leans forwards to bump his forehead gently against Thomas’s. “And I have you to thank for that. We have reached mutual maximum cool equilibrium on this graph of optimal chill.”

“We are _both_ the coolest,” Thomas says, and closes his eyes. “But you’re slightly more cool.”

Logan steps back, keeping a firm grasp on Thomas’s fingers until the very last possible moment, and then someone else whirls him away, and Roman is there. He takes Thomas by the hand and slips another onto his waist, and then they’re off. As smooth as Logan, but _so_ much faster.

“And how are _you_ feeling about this sudden, favourable turn of events?” Thomas says, already breathless. “Wait, I can probably guess... you’re feeling – “

“Invigorated, indomitable, and absolutely incandescent with joy!” Roman proclaims with a twirl that makes Thomas yelp and grab onto him just that bit tighter to prevent himself from falling over. “I never doubted for a moment that we’d do it, but the skill in which we pulled it off-!”

Maybe there’s more to be said between them, but neither of them feel much like doing it. Instead, they just grin at each other, and _dance_. Wild and carefree, on and on until it’s time for them to swap again.

“There’s one more person for you to talk to, I think,” Roman says, and before Thomas can ask, he’s being passed off to the last person in the long string of dancers.

“Hello, you,” greets Tomas Linus Alexander, as he awkwardly catches one of Thomas’s hands in his. There’s a beat where neither of them move, and then they both try to take the lead at once. “Ah, no, hang on – ”

“It’s all right,” says Thomas. “You lead.”

“As you wish,” agrees Tomas, and does. It’s more of a wander than a dance. They’re hardly moving in time at all; stepping back and forth without grace and without passion. They’re barely even touching each other.

Thomas doesn’t know what to say.

“I’m glad it was you,” remarks Tomas after a moment. “Out of everyone and anyone who could have been my counterpart... well, I’m sure if I had the choice, I would have picked someone different. But that would have been a mistake. You were the perfect man for the job, and I didn’t even know it at the time.”

“Thanks,” replies Thomas, “I think. I – ” He hesitates. “I was about to say that I’m glad that you’re _my_ counterpart, because it’s the nice thing to say, but I think that would have been a lie. I mean, it’s great and all that you’re about to sacrifice yourself for the universe, but...”

“But I did some pretty questionable things, yes.” Tomas’s smile is genuine enough, but more than a bit sad around the edges. “I understand.”

“I don’t. I barely understand. I got the highlights from that whole flashback thing your boyfriend did, but that... doesn’t really give me the full picture? It doesn’t tell me what you were thinking, what you were feeling, how much you love him. None of the important things.” Thomas sighs, and then smiles back. He can feel the sadness creeping in at the corners, mirroring Tomas’s. “I don’t need to forgive you for any of it, you know.”

“And I don’t expect you to.”

“I’m glad. But I do anyway.” They pace back-and-forth a few more steps. It’s almost rhythmic. “And it’s not just because you’re going to die. If it was because of that, I think it’d feel like – a pity apology, I guess? Which wouldn’t feel great, not for either of us.”

“So why are you forgiving me, then?”

“Because the memories might not tell me the whole story,” Thomas says. “But your heart kinda does. I’ve had it for the last couple of days, remember?”

“Hard to forget.” Tomas raises a hand to tap one side of his chest. “I’ve got yours beating merrily along right here. You’re a very lively man, Thomas.”

“My Sides would beg to differ,” says Thomas, laughing slightly. “Logan’s always getting on me about exercising more – but, uh, thanks. Not the point, though. You’ve got a good heart, I think. It’s definitely not a _bad_ one, I’d be able to tell. And the thing is, this whole convincing-Nyarlathotep-to-let-us-go thing? I couldn’t have done any of it if you hadn’t swapped with me.”

“You sell yourself short, I think.”

Thomas shakes his head. “I don’t think I do. I mean, negotiating with gods? Saving the world? That... sounds completely ridiculous and not at _all_ like me. I’m not a hero, no matter what Roman says. I’m just a Youtuber, for crying out loud.”

Tomas hums in noncommittal acknowledgement, then pauses, and says, “I don’t know what that word means.”

Thomas tries very hard to quickly figure out the best way to describe social media to a medieval high-fantasy man in a long dramatic cloak.

“It means that I’m just a guy,” he decides, eventually. “Just a regular person. An entertainer, on a good day. I try my best to make people smile, and I try to get through every day and deal with my problems and try to love myself. You’ve had my heart,” he adds. “You know that I’m just ordinary. Not like you. You’re... you’re a _knight,_ or something. I’m pretty sure saving people is what you do. Everything that just happened? Sure, it was my body that did it, but all the action was _your_ heart. You should be getting the credit. It... it’s only _fair_ that you get the credit. What? Why are you smiling at me like that?”

Because he’s got this gentle, fond smile on his face – bright brown eyes sparkling out from behind the messy fringe of his ginger hair. “Oh, come now, Thomas. It’s not the heart that matters. It’s what you do with it.” He reaches out, taps gently at Thomas’s chest. “It fits well in there. I’d let you keep it if I could – you’re doing a much better job with it than I ever did.”

Thomas is weirdly touched by this, but he’s not entirely sure why it’s hitting him with enough force to make him tear up a bit. “But I can’t keep it.”

“Oh no,” says Tomas – Tam Lin. “No, I think it’s about time I took my heart back, Thomas. If that’s okay with you, that is.”

“Time to go?”

“Time to go,” he agrees.

Thomas blinks and now Tam Lin has a shiny silver thermos in his hands, uncapped at the top, and they’re no longer dancing. He’s regarding the greenish gunk inside with a look of calm acceptance on his face. The others – the Sides, the Kings, Octavian and Octavian both, Bee – they’re all there too, paired off with each other and watching silently. But it’s like they aren’t even there, because they don’t speak and they don’t move, and Thomas’s eyes are fixed entirely on Tam Lin as he raises the thermos to his lips, and takes a long, deep sip.

“How is it?” asks Thomas, surprised his own voice isn’t shaking.

Tam Lin pulls a contemplative face as he wipes residue off his lips with his shirtsleeve, lowering the thermos. “Hm. Minty.”

Thomas almost laughs at this, but then a sharp, piercing jolt of pain shoots through his chest and he staggers, clutching at it. “ _Aah!_ That’s...”

“Sorry,” says Tam Lin, wincing in sympathy. He discards the thermos to one side. “If it’s any consolation, I’m going to be feeling the effects pretty soon. Worse than you are right now, even.”

“What do you mean?” Thomas pants, rubbing at his sternum as if that’s going to do any good. “What even _is_ that stuff?”

“Poison, mostly,” says Tam Lin with the driest of smiles. “Or not, depending on your point of view. Ah,” he clears his throat, “I suppose I’m being elusive and evasive again. Force of habit, my apologies.”

Thomas waves a forgiving hand. “It’s all good. Maybe just... hurry up a bit?”

“It’s simple. All the ingredients within it are toxic – but only in large quantities, and sometimes only under specific circumstances. Chamomile, salt, charcoal. It’s a pharmakon – a kill and a cure all at once. It needs to be, to switch us back. Duality in all things. You know how it goes.”

“One of us dies, the other one lives,” Thomas surmises.

“Exactly. Enough poison to kill a horse, enough curative properties to keep that same horse living to an old, ripe age. Ingenious concoction. Do remember to thank Idneidr for me.”

Thomas nods. “I think I get it. Thanks.” He clumsily gets to his feet, straightening to his full height as best as he can, and accepts Tam Lin’s proffered hand. “Okay,” he says. “Okay, let’s do this – one last dance.”

And that’s exactly what they do – they dance. Tam Lin is just about holding Thomas upright as they start it, but despite that, it’s no longer stilted and graceless. It’s not Patton’s loose jive or Remus’s wild swing or Logan’s gentle waltz. It’s something simpler, but with a beautiful elegance to it all the same.

The piercing pain in Thomas’s chest continues to stab all through this, sending dizzying flashes of color and light pounding through his skull and causing him to stagger and stumble. But with each stab, the pain lessens and Thomas starts to feel just a little better. And with each stab, Tam Lin’s face pales, and he starts to look just a little worse.

Thomas looks out, looks all around them, and sees Tam Lin doing the same. And they both see something rather remarkable.

Logan and the Erlking – rotating in elegant circular movements, speaking softly but frankly to each other. The frowns on their faces speak volumes – they’re not happy with each other in the least, but at the same time there’s definite respect there, and it goes both ways. And despite any problems they have, there’s something to be said for the fact that they’re moving in perfect synchronicity.

Patton and the Fisher-King; moving slow and sedate, both chuckling at something-or-other. The Fisher-King’s leg is as messy and ravaged as it’s ever been and he limps every few steps, but here’s the thing: _it’s no longer bleeding._ He looks happier already, happy in a way he hadn’t looked back in the woods. There’s a great deal less pain to it, at the very least.

And all the rest – Roman and Octavian whirl by, wild and enthusiastic, both perfectly matching the other’s energy. Remus and the other Octavian are moving slower than you’d expect, but with uncanny precision to every move they make. Janus and the Two-Faced King, matching each other in an elegantly deadly _something_ that’s almost a foxtrot and almost a waltz. Without words, but with mutual expressions of challenge and pointed delight. And Virgil is having to hunch over quite a bit to reach Bee’s level. They move with cautious mutual understanding, Bee tugging Virgil along and leading him from one point to the next.

“Oh,” breathes Tam Lin as he stumbles slightly. “Oh, would you look at that.”

Thomas has to shift, rearrange himself a bit so he can catch his counterpart and prevent him from falling to the ground entirely, and when he shuffles his arms so he’s now taking the lead, he gets a small smile of gratitude in response. “This sure is something, huh?”

“I haven’t been afraid of dying for a while now, but there was one thing that scared me quite a bit about leaving so soon,” says Tam Lin as his strength starts to visibly drain from him – although his eyes remain radiantly bright. “The possibility that all my work here might have been in vain. That me leaving all of them would mean that all their rivalries and grievances would remain.”

“Well, I don’t know if you managed to fix _everything,_ ” Thomas replies. “But you know what? I think they’re going to be all right.”

“That’s all I’ve ever wanted.” Tam Lin stumbles, tripping over his own feet. His hand drops from Thomas’s shoulder, and his head lists sideways, and his eyelids flutter. And they continue to waltz, round and round in smaller and smaller circles until they’re turning on the spot. And then Tam Lin is sinking to the ground and Thomas is helping him down, kneeling at his side. Bringing him to rest comfortably against the grass, so he can gaze upwards.

The sky is so effortlessly, achingly blue.

“There you go,” murmurs Tam Lin, swiping clumsily at Thomas’s cheek with a dazed little smile. “Back in place. Everything as it should be.”

And he’s right. Thomas’s heart sits right and easy in his chest. He feels _whole,_ in a way that he hasn’t felt for several days now. He smiles back at Tam Lin, feeling a surge of sudden grief that is entirely _his._ “It was nice to meet you. You know, all things considered.”

“Likewise. I wish it could have been under better circumstances, but fate does tend to be cruel like that.”

Thomas holds his hand just a bit tighter. “Goodbye, Tam Lin.”

“Goodbye, Thomas Sanders,” he replies, and releases Thomas’s hand, and there’s a heavy feeling of finality that comes along with that release.

He rises to his feet, steps back and lets the people of this world come forward, kneeling around his fallen body, slowly fading of life. This isn’t his place anymore – the best thing he can do is step back and wait for it to be over.

He feels a hand slip into his, and it feels just as right as his heart does – sliding in like a jigsaw piece finally finding its place. He looks up and sees that it’s Patton, eyes watery but smiling bright as the sun all the same. “Heya, champ. We missed you.”

“Missed you all too,” Thomas grins, and that bittersweet sadness is bubbling up inside of him like a perfect mirror. He opens his other hand, extending it out, and Roman takes it and that feels _right_ too. Logan clasps a hand to his forearm, solid and steady. Virgil slips into place right at his side with an arm around his waist and his head ducked low, and Janus drapes an arm over his shoulder, with Remus mirroring the action from the other side. They all fit so perfectly.

They watch as, one by one, Tam Lin’s friends and loved ones come to sit beside him; exchanging words, embraces, farewells. And finally, the Erlking kneels inelegantly next to his lover – catching his hand and pressing his lips gently to the knuckles. Tam Lin says something soft in response, and reaches up, and they embrace, kissing each other fondly. Hands pressing at each other’s cheeks, each framing the other like they’re the last good things left in the sad remains of broken world.

It’s so perfect of a moment that Thomas is halfway convinced that they’re going to stay like that forever, locked in a furiously tender mutual embrace. But then Tam Lin’s eyes slide sideways, go dull and glassy, and his hands fall limp. The Erlking lowers him down slowly, so slowly, and drapes his arms carefully over his chest. And he sits back, and buries his head in his hands, and is silent in his grief.

The sole remaining eye watching from above looks at them all. Its gaze drifts from the weeping Erlking to an inconsolably sobbing Bee; to Thomas and his Sides, all pressed up against each other, and finally to Tam Lin, still and peaceful on the riverbank – looking for all the world as if he’d simply fallen asleep. It blinks once, seemingly in approval. And then it closes, edges blurring away into nothingness, and it does not open again.

It’s over.

*

All right, so maybe it isn’t _over,_ not exactly; because there’s a lot of other things to do. Thomas and the others have to make sure everybody grasps just how important it is that they tell literally _everyone_ what just happened.

The initial discussion is between everyone – all thirteen of them. Janus clearly and concisely lays out the details of what they need to do. A story that will never die, an ode to their fallen friend. It’s a cruel thing to force it on Tam Lin’s still-grieving friends, but there’s not exactly time to waste.

And to Octavian’s credit – both of them, actually – they barely hesitate. The two of them sit down on the grass right where they stand, and get to work.

Members of the fairy court, as well as quite a few residents of the town, begin to approach their little gathering from all directions, and soon they’re at the centrepoint of a whirl of activity as everybody tries to figure out exactly what’s going on and how best to deal with everything that’s happened. And eventually, the Fisher-King rises up on unsteady legs, and limps out to take charge of events with a grace and calmness that’s kind of astounding, considering the circumstances.

The Erlking remains crouched next to Tam Lin’s body, bent over it. Weeping, silently. Thomas silently wonders if he should go talk to him or not. He glances around for his Sides, but they’re mostly all too occupied with talking to others and amongst themselves, to weigh in with their opinions.

Logan, however, looks over from his current conversation to meet Thomas’s eyes. There is a brief surge of mutual understanding between them. It’d be almost like a mind-meld sort of thing except it’s more like... a reconnection? Because they’re the same person, but their perspectives have been separated until now, and they’d experienced

And Thomas thinks, _it’s not as if he’s going to hurt me. And I’ll regret it if I don’t._

It’s only logical.

He swallows trepidation, and goes to stand next to the Erlking. For a moment or two, he doesn’t speak.

“I’m sorry,” he says, eventually. “For everything.”

The Erlking doesn’t look up at first. He takes a deep breath, and seems to be visibly choking back pure rage and the intense urge to lash out in anger. But then he opens them, and all that’s in his gaze is sad acceptance. “I should be the one to apologize. My actions endangered us all.”

“But I’m the one who’s getting to walk away without losing anything.”

“You lost your ignorance. You lost the delusion that the world was as safe as you thought it was. That is a sort of punishment in its own right.”

“Very poetic,” Thomas says, running a hand through his hair – not quite sure how to respond to this. It’s true enough. There’s an ache in his chest that the loss and replacement of his heart can’t explain. “Yeah. Well. Good luck with your world, I guess.”

“And best of luck with yours,” the Erlking replies. “Should you ever return here, my home is open to you.” He stares for a long, long moment. Thomas gets the unsettling impression that his face and features are being silently compared to those of a dead man. “...But don’t go out of your way to do so.”

Thomas nods, and takes that as his cue to leave this strange, sad king behind. He doesn’t know if he understands him at all, isn’t sure if he can or even wants to forgive him. But he really does wish him well.

And then there is more talking, and more goodbyes – just, a truly ridiculous amount of people to say goodbye to, and all of the Sides want to say goodbye too – but eventually Thomas has to concede that there’s not much else to say. And he really is quite tired. All he wants to do is rest.

“Ready to go?” asks the Two-Faced King, apparently picking up on this.

Thomas closes his eyes and breathes in deeply. And when he opens them, he’s standing there with every bit of him perfectly intact, and Virgil and Roman and Remus and Logan and Patton and Janus are gone. Lying on the ground near his feet is a canvas bag. When he picks it up, he sees that inside are a few bottles of water, some energy bars, a ziplock bag full of medical supplies of all sorts, and his phone, which really is in desperate need of charging. Several sets of his clothing, as well as a luxurious-looking red cape, are neatly folded up and stacked on top of each other.

He loops it over his shoulder, and looks up. “Yeah, I think I am. So how do I get home?”

“Well, you could take a boat,” the Fisher-King suggests, limping up to stand next to his friend and draping a hand easily around his shoulder, and then, at the face Thomas pulls, “Yes, I figured as much. In that case, I think you should just start walking.”

“Any particular direction?” Thomas wonders, glancing around the forest.

“It shouldn’t matter,” says Octavian-the-fae, looking up from where he and his twin are bent over a notebook, passing his instrument between them as they work in tandem. “Remember, all forests are connected.”

Thomas waves to them, says what feels like a million more goodbyes. He barely knows them, but it feels like he’s spent lifetimes by their sides, and there’s some part of him that’s almost reluctant to go.

But then he starts walking. Away from the river, into the trees. Everything blurs into green and grey and brown, and the breeze is light and refreshing on his face. The shadows cut cool patterns across his skin; the infrequent patches of sunlight are lush and warm. He hears the rushing of the river, the chatter of unfamiliar birds far above him, and he blinks and suddenly he’s walking among the trees but none are there. It’s a blatant contradiction that gives him a horrible headache, but it probably means he’s on the right path.

And it doesn’t last for long, thankfully.

His skin prickles, and then he’s stepping out of the treeline, and he sees houses. He hears the distant sound of car horns honking, and familiar birdcalls. The air is no longer sweet and clear; there’s the bitter tang of pollution that he’d somehow never fully registered was there until now. He glances back towards the forest, and realizes he can see right through to the other side. Before him, there’s grassy hills, and beyond that, he can see the back of his house.

“We made it!” he exclaims, and then hugs himself abruptly, spinning around in place with a faint exhausted laugh. “Oh, I _love_ myself – look at that, I actually got home!”

Getting up the hillbanks and up to the properties is all a bit of a blur. The next thing he knows he’s ringing the doorbell to his own house and realizing that out of the many things in his canvas bag, Janus had apparently neglected to remember the front door keys, and also there’s a lot of cars out on the curb and isn’t that strange?

He hears footsteps from within, and the rattle of the door unlocking, then a voice saying, “Shit, okay, thanks for coming, I wasn’t sure if I should have called but he’s been gone for – and I figured – ”

And then the door opens properly, and Thomas is facing Joan, who’s just stopped talking quicker than if they’d been beaned on the head from behind, knocking them instantly unconscious. They just _stare._ Unspeaking. Eyes huge.

“Surprise – I’m not dead?” Thomas tries with a little awkward grin, when the silence becomes unbearable.

“ _Thomas, holy shit!_ ” exclaims Joan, surging forward to grab him by the shoulders.

Thomas is oh-so-aware that he must look like absolute hell right now. He feels exhausted, like he’s been trekking through the forest for days on end; he’s pretty sure his shirt is ripped, and his hair still has knots and dirt in it. He knows for a fact that there’s definitely still a single bedraggled daisy tucked behind one ear, and he has no plans on taking it out anytime soon.

He lets himself fall forwards and pretty much just straight-up collapses into Joan’s startled grasp, hugging them as tightly as he can. The exhaustion of it all seems to be catching up to him, and it’s far heavier than he’d expected it to be – like he’s just lived through it seven times over.

“You would _not_ believe the day I’ve just had,” he tells them, with feeling.

“ _Yeah_ , no, uh,” Joan says, and hugs him back, just as tight. “I think you might be right. Dude, you smell like you just robbed a Lush store with a high-pressure water hose, and you _look_ like you failed and every employee in the store decided to take instant, violent retribution. What _happened_?”

They are soft and warm and so wonderfully human. He could hold onto them forever, but there’s a lot of other stuff he wants now that he’s made it back. A shower, for one thing. A very, very extensive nap, for another.

“Long day, long story,” he says, and releases them. He rests a hand against the front door of his house. Home, at last. “Let’s go inside, and I’ll... well, I’ll _try_ to tell you, but keep in mind the whole thing’s kind of unbelievable, so – ” He looks properly at the driveway, and all the cars, and squints. “Are those police cars?”

“Mm. Well, the thing is... first of all, you went missing,” Joan explains. “And then your Sides called me and told me they were still here but you somehow weren’t, which was weird enough on its own. But then _they_ went missing, and so did your car, and by that point the police were already involved – so basically, what I’m saying is that you’d better have a really, _really_ good explanation for all of this, because approximately fucking _all_ of your family and a solid five-to-ten percent of the local police force are inside.”

Anxiety bubbles up in him, electrifying and familiar, as if the very concept of this is the scariest thing that’s happened to him all day. Some part of his brain goes, _oh no, we’re going to have to lie to the police,_ and another part goes, _wonderful, we’ve been waiting over thirty years for us to have to lie to the police, this is the perfect opportunity for extravagant lying,_ and several other parts start wondering if the police would actually take this seriously if he tells them what _really_ happened.

It’s so beautifully normal. This is how he’s supposed to think, how he’s _supposed_ to feel. Even though the slowly approaching panic is threatening to be overwhelming, it’s _his_ panic.

And really, he thinks, quite logically indeed, with all he’s been through today, this is going to be comparatively easy.

“I have no idea what I’m going to say,” he admits to Joan. “But I have a feeling that everything’s going to be all right. I’ll work something out as I go.”

Joan squints. “So what I’m hearing is, you want me to do all the talking for you, because you have no idea where to even start to explain this and you’re going to feel bad about lying even though it’s probably the best thing to do in this situation?”

Thomas wilts a bit as reality ensues. Sweet, mundane reality. How he’s missed it. “...Yes. Yeah, that’s – yes. Please do that.”

“Gotcha.” Joan wraps a steadying arm around Thomas’s shoulder, and opens the door. “Just look extremely confused, mumble a lot, and if in doubt, feign medical-drama-style amnesia. We’ll work out the rest later.”

“You’re the best,” Thomas says, leaning into them as the two of them step forward into the uncertainty of whatever’s about to come next. “Have I told you that recently?”

“Tell me one more time, just to make up for what you’re about to put me through,” they reply, but hug him just a bit closer.

And the door swings shut, leaving the birdsong and the trees and the distant splashing of the river long behind and far, far away.


	12. epilogue

A month later, Thomas heads back to the forest.

Quite a large part of him had been _extremely_ tentative at the very thought of even setting foot anywhere near a group of three or more trees after everything that had happened. But it’s been a good long while since the whole incident, and he feels like this is something he needs to do. Some amount of closure, maybe – or, at the very least, something to convince himself that the story he had fed the police and the majority of his close friends and family wasn’t actually the truth of the matter.

At the time, he had spun some wild, extremely unconvincing tale about getting lost during a hike and ending up hitchhiking his way back home across half the state. Nevermind that he’d apparently been gone for four days, and it shouldn’t have taken him nearly that long. He’d let everyone assume that the inconsistencies were due to dehydration or some sort of fever, and just kind of allowed himself to be dragged to the hospital and through several interviews in which he’d just shrugged and stammered a lot. (Janus had been fondly furious later, but Thomas is _extremely_ bad at lying, okay; lies of omission were absolutely the way to go in this case.)

Apparently, nobody in this dimension had noticed reality unravelling around them and being slammed messily and inelegantly back together. It’s probably for the best, considering, but –

“I’m _still_ saltier than a downright devastatingly distraught mermaid sobbing tears of grief into the dead sea,” Roman declares as Thomas gets out of his car.

“It’s been a _month,_ ” Logan says with a sigh. “We’re not over this yet?”

Thomas shrugs, and grabs his backpack from the passenger seat. “Sorry, Lo, but... you have to admit it _does_ kind of suck that we saved the _entire multiverse_ from complete and utter destruction, and literally nobody knows about it.”

“We could be rich! Famous! _Respected!_ ” Roman exclaims.

“Or we could be thrown into the nearest asylum!” Remus adds, popping up from the other side of the car. “Detained for deliciously disturbing delusions. Maybe we hallucinated the whole thing! Maybe we just dreamed that a god wanted to vore everything!”

“Well, let’s not fall into harmful ableist stereotypes about mental health,” Logan begins.

“Revered!” Roman continues, unbidden. “With a billion Youtube subscribers and a diamond-encrusted jacuzzi!”

“And let’s stop talking about stuff that’s never going to happen,” Thomas requests with a little wistful sigh. “Let’s just go and try to find the place, okay?”

Everyone’s here now, so they set off into the trees. They follow the sound of running water, hop the trickling stream once they get to it, and keep on going.

“Still don’t like this,” Virgil grouses. “Didn’t we learn our lesson about wandering through the forest last time?”

“I mean, we’re friends with the Fairy King now!” Patton points out. “I don’t think he wants to drag us back into his castle again, and I think everybody else there probably knows it’s a bad idea to mess with us at this point.”

“So?” Virgil retorts. “A creepy magic forest is still a creepy magic forest. I don’t want to be dragged back into fairyland by anyone, even if it’s for a _nice_ reason.”

“But Thomas wants to do this,” Janus says – to which Virgil grumbles and deflates a bit, muttering mutinously but indistinctly. “And it’s not an actively harmful sort of wish. Quite the opposite, I would consider it _closure_ of sorts. So I approve.”

“Good to have your approval,” Thomas replies, raising his eyebrows. “Okay, the clearing was just through... _hm –_ Logan, help me out here?”

They don’t find the clearing, even though Thomas and Logan both swear up-and-down that they went in the exact same direction as they had last time. What they do find, however, is a small grove of irregularly spaced trees, forming a natural umbrella of shade over a fallen log.

“This seems as good a place as any,” Thomas says, and sits down on the log to unzip his backpack. Patton hops up next to him, Janus takes his other side, and the rest of them just hover around as he pulls out the large brown paper bag labelled ‘TO OCTAVIAN x2’. “I guess we’ll just leave this here, and hope they get it, somehow.”

Inside the bag is a variety of things. Guitar strings, sheet music for the songs that Roman had sung with them so long ago in the town square. A selection of loose-leaf teas, a very old hoodie of Thomas’s that Virgil deemed appropriate for his much smaller counterpart, some fishing gear that Thomas knows he’ll never get around to using – that the Fisher-King will be able to make far better use of, providing he’s still doing that sort of thing.

“For the sake of playing, ah...” Logan holds one of his flashcards up to eye level, and then glances over it at Thomas. “‘Devil’s advocate’? I feel like I _should_ warn you that the likelihood of this ever reaching them is fairly low. We aren’t fully informed on how this ‘dimensional travel’ business works. Most likely this will be found by some other hiker, or, worse – set upon by local wildlife.”

Thomas sighs. “I know. But, I feel like I need to do something, you know? Even if they never actually get it, it’s the thought that counts.”

“Oh no,” Patton interrupts, abruptly worried. “What if a wild animal tries to eat it and ends up choking on something in there?”

“Oh _no_.” Thomas, horrified, makes a wild swipe for the bag. “Okay, hang on, let me – ”

Roman grabs Thomas’s arm before he can do so. “Sh! No – listen!”

Thomas opens his mouth, but Roman shushes him extensively, waving his hands in a whole-body flutter of excitement. So Thomas shuts up, and listens.

At first, there’s nothing except birds and the wind in the trees and the distant sound of the river rushing by. But then he starts to hear faint music. Strings, being plucked in a melodic cascade. Someone humming and vocalizing snatches of nonsense words, and someone else laughing, bright and merry.

“Is that-?” Remus asks, abruptly freezing from where he’s trying to jam himself headfirst into the ant-encrusted hollow log.

“I think it is!” Patton exclaims.

And now it’s Thomas’s turn to wave his hands in protest. “Sh, _shh,_ guys; I can’t hear – ”

Two voices, strangely alike (although one is noticeably raspier than the other) rise up in distant harmony, accompanied by the sweet, resonant tones of what Logan reliably informs them is actually called a cittern. They aren’t close enough that it feels as if Thomas could push through the undergrowth and go to meet their sources. But at the same time, they don’t feel that far away at all.

“ _Fill your hearts with brotherhood, and fill your cups with gin -  
And we’ll go down to Kadath Wood and drink to old Tam Lin!_”

They sit there on and around that fallen log for what feels like forever, listening to the sound of the song that’ll keep the universe running for as long as it’s sung. It’s a ballad, a long one; with the sort of tune that’s an instant earworm. Easy to get stuck in your head, and easy to belt out without having to put much thought into it. Thomas can feel it falling into place in his mind already, and he’s planning on singing it at every possible opportunity, and sharing it with reckless abandon.

It’s about a young man who tried his very best to save the people he cared for. Who tried, and failed, and tried and succeeded and failed once more – and succeeded, one last time, only to die in the process. A young man whose untimely death continues to save all of creation even to this day.

It’s a long song, a sad song, a love song. Thomas and the others are there, in the peripheries of the lyrics. Lurking at the edges, never really named or referred to as anything but their roles. It stings at his pride, just a bit, but really – it’s for the best. History’s not going to want to remember the heroes that survived. Like Remus had said; tragedies persist for far, far longer. And it’s that longevity that they need, _really_ need.

Because mainly it’s a story about love. Love in all its forms, because love, like tragedy, persists – and is just as powerful, if not even more. Love for family, between brothers and friends, romantic and platonic and every other form it can possibly take. Love for your land, for your people, for all of humanity and every other living being on the face of this earth and any other.

It’s sad, of course it is, but it’s that bittersweet sort of sadness that feels unquestionably _right._ A satisfying sort of sadness – the sort that invites you not to cry because it’s over, but to be thankful for what happened.

And then it fades. Slowly at first, then all at once the sounds of the forest are far louder than any of the distant melody. The cittern can still be heard faintly, but the words are dim and harder to make out.

And it’s gone.

Remus is now sitting with his back against the log, and is openly beaming, although he does snap out a quick, “Needs more kinky, sexual subplots,” when he notices Thomas looking at him. The others wear similar expressions of fond delight.

“I think it’ll end up getting to them, somehow,” Thomas tells Logan with a grin, propping up the bag on top of the log. “Which means we’ve done what we came for. Virgil? Good news. We’re leaving the creepy magic forest. You can stop pumping the adrenaline now.” He turns on the spot, pinpointing the direction where they had originally entered from, and begins to head out and back towards the path.

“Wait,” says Virgil, and pauses. The expression on his face reads ‘not entirely comfortable with the situation’ in big flashing neon letters. “No, let’s...” He winces, pained. “Let’s explore a bit more.”

Thomas stops, turns back, and looks him over. “...Are you sure? Because we can just leave. We can absolutely do that.”

“You don’t want to, though,” Roman points out.

“Yeah. This is a nice day, so I’ll – I’ll let up a little. Just this once, don’t get cocky. I mean, what’s the worst that can happen?” Virgil’s expression becomes a bit less pained, a bit more genuinely wry. “We’ve already survived the end of the world.”

“Yeah! Mildly spooky, brightly-lit forest? Pft, piece of cake!” Remus agrees.

“Do I want to know what’s _in_ the cake?” Thomas asks.

“Probably not, but I’m about to tell you anyway. Buckle up –”

Thomas closes his eyes for a long moment, and begins the involved process of ignoring literally everything that’s coming out of Remus’s mouth until he’s done with his current convoluted tangent. Sometimes he just needs to get it out of his system, and that’s fine. He opens them once more. “Okay, Virge. As long as you’re okay with it – let’s go exploring. Just for a bit.”

“No walking into fairy rings, though,” Virgil warns.

“Got it,” Thomas agrees easily.

“And – and no dark caves, or weird Stonehenge ripoffs, or creepy old cabins, or anything else. No more stupid magical adventures, I will enforce this with a _vengeance_.”

“Caves, Stonehenges, cabins, check-check-check. Not going near any of those.”

Virgil glares, sullen, but apparently can’t find anything else to complain about. “Well... okay. Just so we’re clear. And if you find any berry bushes...”

Thomas laughs, and slings an arm over Virgil’s shoulder, pulling him along with a little bounce as they begin to walk. “Don’t worry,” he says. “The only thing I’m taking back with me today is that song.”

Logan links arms with Thomas on his other side. “And us, I should hope.”

“Oh yeah,” agrees Thomas. “I’m never leaving you guys behind ever again – any of you. You’re stuck with me forever.”

“Like a song you can’t get out of your head,” Roman says, grabbing Virgil’s hand.

“Or a _really_ awful smell,” Remus adds, twining his own around Logan’s and yanking hard so that he stumbles and huffs.

Patton tugs Remus back to stop him from doing it again, and Janus takes Roman’s arm, and Thomas tilts his head back to the sky, and laughs, and _breathes_.

The day is clear and clean and bright, and they’re all alive to see it. Thomas loves his job and loves his friends and loves himself, and there’s sunshine on his face and a cool breeze in his hair. Everything could change tomorrow – the world could end in fire; in ice, in atomic obliteration; or a force too unimaginable to name, moving to destroy them all without a second thought. But that is tomorrow, and this is today, and today is better than he could have ever hoped for.

And he really couldn’t be happier.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaaand that's a wrap!
> 
> You can check out [my Spotify playlist here](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1igIlLZtstNkCq5kohIday) (because I listened to many, many sick jams while writing and daydreaming about this), and the wonderful art by kakuta berry, [which is right here!](https://kakutaberry.tumblr.com/post/627537327546417152/my-ts-storytime-illustration-for)
> 
> [The fic's masterpost is right here, with more links and fun stuff, updated as I add to it.](https://sometimes-love-is-enough.tumblr.com/post/627511947613683713/eucatastrophe-masterposthere-are-some-facts-all) And also so you can reblog it, if you feel like doing that.  
> Come find me on Tumblr at [sometimes-love-is-enough](https://sometimes-love-is-enough.tumblr.com), where I will no doubt be talking about this fic for at _least_ a week. Also I talk about stuff I like and occasionally draw stuff. It's a nice fun place! I promise.
> 
> I'm gonna take a short break from writing to recover some energy, because I'm kinda drained at this point. But not too long. There were a lot of ideas that didn't make it into Eucatastrophe (I'm talking, like. pages and pages of drafts and deleted material) and at least one of them bloomed into a fully-formed story of its own when I wasn't paying attention.
> 
> Stay safe, and see you all soon!


End file.
